Frances (Fannie) Perkins was an amazing person that represented a strong image for the female race. She was the first female cabinet member in the United States. Frances Perkins was the most influential person in American history because if she hadn’t been the first U.S. female cabinet member, females may not have a role in the U.S. government.
In the 1840’s, the Perkins’ family worked in the brick-making factory, and they were wealthy for a short period of time. Many businesses collapsed and were bought out, so the wealth didn’t last long. In 1870, the Perkins’ turned to dairy farming to get their money. Shortly after, Frances’ father, Frederick married a woman by the name of Susan Bean. On April 10th, 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts Fannie Coralie Perkins was born. In 1884, when Fannie was four years old, Frederick and Susan had a second child, Ethel (Downey 7). Fannie was very close to her family her entire life. She often spoke of ancestors, she adored and their ways of thinking helped her when she had to make big decisions later on in her life.
Fannie went to Worcester Classical High School, which was mostly made up of boys. This was rare for women because during that period of time only 3% of women moved on to a higher level of education. While she was growing up, Fannie was quiet and let others be the center of attention, but she spoke up when needed. In high school, Fannie started to realize that the gaps between the rich and the poor in the community were getting bigger. However, her family still remained in the middle class. Fannie graduated from high school, and was enrolled into Mount Holyoke College. In college, she shared a room with a friend in Rockefeller Hall. Fannie liked the college, and her mot...
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...ary of labor in 1933, and she and Suzanna packed their things to go to Washington D.C. “On March 4th, 1933, Frances was sworn in as the first woman to serve in the United States cabinet” Schiff says. This was an astonishing moment. Frances was not only the first female cabinet member; she was the only secretary of labor to hold the job for 12 years.
Works Cited
Downey, Kirstin. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins- Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, and the Minimum Wage. New York: Random House Inc., 2009. Print.
Schiff, Karenna Gore. Lighting the Way: Nine Women Who Changed Modern America. New York: HYPERION, 2005. Print.
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Revolutionary Mothers: Women in the Struggle for America’s Independence. By Carol Berkin (New York: Vintage Books, 2006). 194 pp. Reviewed by Melissa Velazquez, October 12, 2015.
“National Women’s Conference.” Off Our Backs 8, no. 1 (1978): 2-3. Accessed February 12, 2012. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25792578.
The short story is set in the period of The Great Depression, and lower classes especially struggled in this hard time. The Great Depression attacked the nation by society class. The lower levels struggled even more than usual. Lizbeth lived in a small rural town with a few members of her family. Her father and mother worked all day and Lizbeth and her brother, Joey, would hang out with other teenagers in their community to waste the daylight. The community always helped each other out but there was this one woman, Miss Lottie who played an important role in young Lizbeth’s
She also served on the San Francisco mayor’s committee on crime and the committee on adult detention in 1968. She became the first female president for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors a year later, and was reelected for two additional terms because of her success and popularity.
By April 1933, when Governor Herbert H. Lehman signed the new minimum wage bill for working women, the agenda pursued by the Women's Joint Legislative Conference began to assume national proportions for three reasons. First, the election of New York State Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt as president in November of 1932 presented an opportunity for progressive-minded reformers. Second, Conference leaders such as Molly Dewson, Frances Perkins, and Rose Schneiderman left the New York scene to pursue a reform agenda in Washington, D.C. Dewson became the head of the Women's Division of the national Democratic Party, while Perkins assumed the position of U.S. Secretary of Labor, the first female cabinet officer in American history. Schneiderman found herself appointed to the National Recovery Administration (NRA) after Congress created the agency in June 1933. Finally, and most importantly, a powerful ally helped facilitate the continuation of the Conference agenda. Eleanor Roosevelt, the new First Lady, effectively promoted women in the New Deal. As her biographer Blanche Wiesen Cook shows, Roosevelt worked with Molly Dewson to compile a list of qualified women for federal appointments. "By 1935," Cook notes, "over fifty women had been appointed to ranking national positions and hundreds to leadership positions in various government agencies on the state and local level."
Further, throughout the book, Sadie and Bessie continuously reminds the reader of the strong influence family life had on their entire lives. Their father and mother were college educated and their father was the first black Episcopal priest and vice principal at St. Augustine Co...
She authored numerous sociological texts that are still referenced today, and was responsible for incorporating research and statistical data into the legislative process. She also initiated several investigations into child labor infractions in factories across the country. Her help in drafting Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Social Security Act of 1935 provided a foundation for the future of social security. Her extensive contributions to the betterment of conditions for numerous disenfranchised groups earned her the title of one of American history’s most influential women, and in 1976 she was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame (New World Encyclopedia, 2017).
The role of women in American history has evolved a great deal over the past few centuries. In less than a hundred years, the role of women has moved from housewife to highly paid corporate executive to political leader. As events in history have shaped the present world, one can find hidden in such moments, pivotal points that catapult destiny into an unforeseen direction. This paper will examine one such pivotal moment, fashioned from the fictitious character known as ‘Rosie the Riveter’ who represented the powerful working class women during World War II and how her personification has helped shape the future lives of women.
Born in Maine, of April, 1802, Dorothea Dix was brought up in a filthy, and poverty-ridden household (Thinkquest, 2). Her father came from a well-to-do Massachusetts family and was sent to Harvard. While there, he dropped out of school, and married a woman twenty years his senior (Thinkquest, 1). Living with two younger brothers, Dix dreamed of being sent off to live with her grandparents in Massachusetts. Her dream came true. After receiving a letter from her grandmother, requesting that she come and live with her, she was sent away at the age of twelve (Thinkquest, 4). She lived with her grandmother and grandfather for two years, until her grandmother realized that she wasn’t physically and mentally able to handle a girl at such a young age. She then moved to Worcester, Massachusetts to live with her aunt and her cousin (Thinkquest, 5).
The New Deal was a set of acts that effectively gave Americans a new sense of hope after the Great Depression. The New Deal advocated for women’s rights, worked towards ending discrimination in the workplace, offered various jobs to African Americans, and employed millions through new relief programs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), made it his duty to ensure that something was being done. This helped restore the public's confidence and showed that relief was possible. The New Deal helped serve American’s interest, specifically helping women, african american, and the unemployed and proved to them that something was being done to help them.
During the pre-revolutionary period, more and more men worked outside the home in workshops, factories or offices. Many women stayed at home and performed domestic labor. The emerging values of nineteenth-century America, which involves the eighteenth-century, increasingly placed great emphasis upon a man's ability to earn enough wages or salary to make his wife's labor unnecessary, but this devaluation of women's labor left women searching for a new understanding of themselves. Judith Sargent Murray, who was among America's earliest writers of female equality, education, and economic independence, strongly advocated equal opportunities for women. She wrote many essays in order to empower young women in the new republic to stand up against society and make it apparent that women are equals.
Dorothea Dix and her two brothers ended up moving to Boston to live with their grandmother on their father’s side Dorothea Lynde, who was the wife of Dr Elijah Dix.2 Dix helped with the rearing of her brothers as she had done in her parents’ home. The grandmother tried to instill her Puritan ways of Boston’s wealthy into Dix’s mind. Grandmother Dix tried to turn young Dorothea into a nice proper girl from Boston, but that wasn’t in the cards for young Dix. The grandmother had given her dancing lessons and even her own private seamstress. Dix was not into this style of life and she would give some of her clothes away, and food to the poor; which had infuriated her grandmother. This angered the grandmother enough to send youn...
Jeannette Rankin is most known for being the first woman in congress and a fighter for women 's rights. Rankin was opinionated and confident in herself. She stood up for women and children all over the world. However, Jeannette Rankin was not just known for fighting for women 's rights but also a being a pacifist, peace activist and a native Montanan.
Baker, Paula. “The Domestication of Politics: Women and American Political Society, 1780-1920.” American Historical Review 89, no. 3 (1984): 620-647.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.