Frances Perkins (1880-1965) was a social worker, government official, and lifelong advocate for social justice and economic security. As U.S. Secretary of Labor 1933-45, she was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, and the driving force behind Social Security and other programs that still provide financial security for all Americans. She was born here at #12 Worcester Square on April 10, 1880, to parents recently arrived from Newcastle, Maine. The family moved two years later to Worcester, Massachusetts where Frances was educated in the public schools. As a student at Mount Holyoke College, she witnessed the miserable working conditions of child textile laborers in Holyoke, Massachusetts and vowed to dedicate her career to remedying them. She later worked for women’s suffrage, as a social worker and factory investigator, and was NY State Labor Commissioner, where she successfully lobbied for groundbreaking legislation establishing worker protections. She served throughout the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, later as a U.S. Civil Service Commissioner, and taught at Cornell University for the last ten years of her life.
