Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins was born into an upper class Yankee family in the late 1800s. For college, she attended Mount Holyoke where, despite a dislike for the subject, she chose to study chemistry to prove her resilience. Perkins began her career after college working at the Hull House helping the needy before being appointed to the Industrial Commission by the governor of New York, Al Smith. Perkins was married to Paul Wilson, with whom she had a daughter and a son who died soon after birth. Both Perkins’s daughter and Wilson were found to have manic-depression and Perkins became the sole provider for her family.

She was later appointed Industrial Commissioner by Franklin D. Roosevelt and worked to establish social-reforms in the US. After witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire at a formational time in her life, Perkins grew more passionate and idealistic, while also becoming...