An Old Timey Podcast - 29: Frances Perkins Gave Us the Weekend (Part 2)

Episode Date: October 30, 2024

Frances Perkins wasn’t just the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. She was also America’s longest serving Secretary of Labor. The only thing that overshadows her status as a trailblazer is what she accomplished in office. She’s the reason we have Social Security. She led the fight to end child labor, to establish a minimum wage and to create the 40-hour work week. She tried to establish universal health care… but hey, she was only human. Ready for the sad part? She did all of that while under constant personal attacks. Her political opponents tried to impeach her. They spread a rumor that she hadn’t been born in America. Hmm… does any of that sound familiar? Ya know what Paula Abdul says… two steps forward and two steps back… Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from: The documentary, “Summoned: Frances Perkins and the General Welfare.” The book, “The Woman Behind the New Deal,” by Kirstin Downey The Frances Perkins Center website “Frances Perkins” entry on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website Are you enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Then please leave us a 5-star rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts! Are you *really* enjoying An Old Timey Podcast? Well, calm down, history ho! You can get more of us on Patreon at patreon.com/oldtimeypodcast. At the $5 level, you’ll get a monthly bonus episode (with video!), access to our 90’s style chat room, plus the entire back catalog of bonus episodes from Kristin’s previous podcast, Let’s Go To Court.

Hear ye, hear ye. You are listening to an old-timey podcast. I'm Kristen Caruso. And I'm slowly turning into a box. It's Norman Caruso. And on this episode, I'll be talking about the first woman to serve on a presidential cabinet, part two. Woo! Yeah! Woo! Uh, Norm, you're being ridiculous. What? You know why. Everyone... Are you commenting on my... How I'm slowly turning into a box.

box because I am. Norm has body issues. Wow. Just tell it to the whole world. You just told you. You do not look like a box. Look, here's a deal, Kristen. As men get older,

they slowly morph into a box. Their body looks like a rectangle. Okay. Because when you're younger, you have a nice kind of upper body and it's kind of poofy, you know, like this. And then when you get down to the waist, it gets a little slimmer.

And what you're saying now is... But as you get older, that upper part starts to shrink, and then it falls down to the waist, and then you become a rectangle with arms and legs sticking out of it. So I went to the bathroom the other day to get ready for my day. I looked in the mirror. I had become a box, Kristen. You have not become a box.

I am a chewy.com order. with arms and legs in a head, okay? Okay, everyone, we went to my cousin Madeline's wedding. Madeline and Mason got married. Congratulations. Yes, congratulations to them. They are a beautiful couple. We're so happy for them.

Unfortunately, the day was dampened because even though Norm truthfully looked wonderful in his suit, he kept calling himself a chewy.com box. It's true, Kristen. You looked good. Listen, I told you, I'm going to put up, they did this on Portlandia. Uh-huh. It's one of my favorite sketches from Portlandia. I'm going to set up a white sheet outside on the clothes line.

Uh-huh. No, I'm not joining the KKK. Great. Okay, good to hear it. I'm going to set up a white sheet, and I'm going to stand behind it, and then you tell me what you see. Do you see a box? Or do I see just a normal human man? We'll stay tuned, history hose.

We'll fill you in on what Kristen sees. I don't know. I'm just feeling like a box, but I have good news. They've come out with a surgery to fix men that look like boxes. What they do is they take a box cutter and they run it down the middle. And it opens the flaps and it releases everything inside. Uh-huh. And then you regain that figure.

Wow. Doesn't sound like there will be any problems there. It's called a breakdown surgery. And the only way I can afford the breakdown surgery, Kristen, is... Oh, okay, good. You're actually segueing into Patreon because I was like... Is if we get more signups on our Patreon. Patreon.com slash old-tummy podcast.

Folks, if you love what we're doing here and you want to support a small independent podcast, please consider joining us on Patreon. Well, it sounds like even if they don't like what we're doing here, and they don't give a shit about small independent podcasts, and they just care about unboxing you. Yeah. Then they ought to sign up. Yes.

I agree, Kristen. Maybe they just feel really bad for me that I'm turning into a box. At the $5 level, you get access to monthly bonus episodes with the full video. You're going to want to listen to the October bonus episode. It is fun. It's horrifying. It was a good episode, though. I really liked it.

Yeah, but you go into a lot of gross detail. It is very, very gross. Plus you get the full video of that bonus episode. So you can see my face going. Exactly. You can see Kristen's reaction. You get access to our Discord chat to Chitty Chat the day away. It's a great deal.

But the real value, Kristen, because we lose money every time someone signs up. It's at the $10 pig butter investor tier because you get early ad-free episodes of an old-timey podcast with full video of every single episode. You get a signed thank you card and stay. stickers from us. You get access to our YouTube watch parties every month. We're doing trivia now. It is fun. It is fun. But yeah. And 10% off all merchandise, including we just launched our first product, History Ho T-shirts. They sold out in 12 hours. Plus, you'll be supporting my box cutting surgery. And anyone who's watching the video knows how badly he needs it.

People watching the video are saying, Kristen, why are you talking to an Amazon.com order right now? How is it even speaking to you right now? The technology on this podcast is amazing. It's the magic of editing, folks. Am I allowed to start my little story here today? Go ahead. Oh, gosh. You okay over there?

I just told you I look like a box. And you don't even care. It's not that I don't care. It's that I really think you look great. And I don't think you look like a box. I think you're really weird for thinking you look like a box. You look like a box. Well, I appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you, honey. All right. Previously, on an old-timey podcast. We learned about Francis Perkins, a woman whose name has been largely forgotten, but whose tireless efforts on behalf of everyday Americans are still relied upon today.

In last week's episode, we learned, that when President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Francis to serve as his Secretary of Labor, she agreed to do so on the condition that he understood and supported her vision. In that meeting, she pulled out a list of everything she hoped to accomplish as the nation's first woman cabinet member. She wanted to create a 40-hour work week. A minimum wage. Ding. Unemployment compensation.

Ding. Workers' comp. Ding. And end to child labor. Ding. Federal aid for unemployment relief. Ding. An old age pension.

Ding. revamped federal employment service. Bing. And universal health care. Hell no. No. No. Oh, thank God we don't have that.

I love my freedom. FDR wondered if what she'd proposed was even constitutional. Frankly, Francis shared that concern. But with the Great Depression, in full swing, zero social safety nets in place, and countless Americans at the mercy of big business, Francis felt strongly that if she was named Secretary of Labor, she'd use that position to do some good. In this week's episode, the work gets started. Picture. Oh, what?

Before you start, the history hose have informed us of something. Oh, no, did I make a mistake? You didn't, but just an interesting little titty-bitty. Okay. So the name Fanny, which was Francis Perkins' original name, right? Yeah, yeah. So for Americans, it's slang for butt. Yeah, which is why she changed it.

No one was taking her seriously because her name was but. But did you know in Britain, Fanny is slang for vagina? I did not know that. Yeah. Oh, gosh, imagine. You're a trailblazing woman, and you go over. overseas and you're introducing yourself as vagina. Good grief.

Hello, I'm Vagina Perkins. This lady had to work through a lot of stuff, break down a lot of barriers. Yeah. She made a good change to Francis. I think so too. May I continue? Yes, that was a very important thing I had to tell you there. Oh, we all agree.

Now go ahead and continue your story, Kristen. Picture it. It's 1933. And Francis Perkins just got finished with her meeting with FDR, where she told him everything she hoped to accomplish as Secretary of Labor. We just rattled off that list. We sure did. Thanks to our dear friend hindsight, we know that she accomplished quite a few of those goals.

And thanks to our other dear friend, common sense, we can probably guess that those accomplishments didn't come easy. But in her biography of Francis Perkins, Kirsten Downey establishes how unlikely it was that Francis would accomplish any of those goals by pointing out some of the major Supreme Court decisions that led up to that meeting in 1933. Ooh. Okay. Well, you know, the Supreme Court is a well-respected institution that never makes incorrect

rulings or mistakes. So I'm excited to hear what they did in the early 20th century. Oh, boy, Norm. Hope you can detect all my sarcasm in this. Are you ready? for a montage of truly terrible Supreme Court decisions. Yeah, I'm wondering if I have a song for this. Oh, in 1905.

Oh, is that it? It's just a clip of the song. Wait, actually, it sounds like a bunch of horrible shit's going to happen, so. In 1905, the Supreme Court was like, whoa, oh no, if we tell bakery workers that they can't work more than 10 hours a day, then that's super bad for them because then they can't work as long as they want. Oh, man, that would be terrible. I want to work 14 hours a day. Yeah, we all do, Norm.

That's the dream. In 1918, the Supreme Court was like, wait, we can't scale back child labor. If we do that, it won't be fair to the states. Won't anyone think of the states? That sounds familiar. In 1923, the Supreme Court was like, we can't set a minimum wage for women. Tisn't right.

Corporations are definitely people, but women aren't. Now we wrap up the montage with B-roll of a baker collapsing into a tray of mini muffins after a 15-hour day. Cut to a child with a briefcase. Cut to a woman buying bras at Costco because she can't afford any better. Oh, it's all so fun for the super wealthy, powerful people. Not so much for anyone else. Can you believe those decisions? Yeah, I can believe those decisions. I know, I know. It's just, it's awful. It's, it's just so frustrating that the Supreme Court will make decisions

that don't benefit what the majority of America wants. Yeah. It's wild to me that how they set up the Supreme Court. How are they like, okay, it's a lifetime appointment because that means there will be less bias because you'll be on there for your life and that way you'll remain neutral, which I think is short-sighted to think that. Also, the president gets to appoint the Supreme Court justices. No way that's a bad idea. I don't know.

I just, maybe at the time it was fine, but today the country has changed. things have changed? Maybe we need to update how the Supreme Court works. Yeah, I don't know what the solution is. I mean, I did go to one semester of law school, so I should have the solution. Yeah, you should. It's funny. I don't necessarily think that it's the lifetime appointments that are a problem. It's people being bought off. You know? Yeah, money in politics. Yeah, that's a big problem. If people forget who they're there to serve or if people don't care about who they serve, then, boy, you all of a sudden start thinking, little Timmy better go clean out that chimney because it'd be tough if North Carolina didn't get to set some rules in place.

I don't know. Anyway, let's move on. I'm sorry, I got sidetracked. Okay. Francis knew she had a lot going against her. And she also knew FDR well enough to know that even though he said he was behind her, he said that kind of thing to a lot of people. He was a politician.

Yep, he's going to say. what he has to say. And also, he was basically a good guy, but he was easily swayed. She'd have to be careful with him. And really, she'd have to be careful with everyone. She was about to take a job that would put her on a stage unlike any other. She'd be picked apart, scrutinized, and she was fine with having her work analyzed. But once she took the national stage, everything would be on the table. Her looks, her voice, her family. That last one, her family, was a real concern for Francis. By the time Francis became Secretary of Labor, her husband Paul had struggled with his mental health for years. He'd been out of work for the previous four years. In fact, he was in an

institution when she came to him and told him that she was going to become a member of FDR's cabinet. Do you know what institution he was in? I do not. I know he bounced around. I know he bounced around a lot. Okay. The conversation they had wasn't really a conversation. She told him that she'd be taking the job and that she'd come back to New York to visit him every Saturday, like usual, and he told her that he supported her decision. At that point, their daughter Susanna was a junior in high school, and Francis really didn't want to like upend her life. So she started making plans to keep their apartment in New York located at 1239 Madison Avenue. Oh.

Uh-huh. Yeah. Speaking of the wealthy elite. Yeah, no kidding. It was a four-bedroom apartment on Madison Avenue. Hmm. I don't think this exists anymore. I don't think it does either.

That building, I looked it up on Google Maps. It looks too new. Yeah, it does. Although it looks like there's a delicious Italian restaurant. Across the street, and guess what? It has a big-ass green awning. That's how you know it's good. Mm-hmm.

Also a lingerie store. Oh, Norm, don't get distracted. Ooh. Just a lot of clicking over there. Okay. So the idea was they'd keep that apartment so that Susanna could stay in school, and meanwhile, Francis tried to find

someplace where she could stay in Washington, D.C. It was a little stressful. How about the Willard Hotel? Okay, shut up. What? Shut up. I took this out of the script. Norman Caruso.

Oh my gosh. What? Pause everybody. Okay. What? Norman and I took a trip. It was a couple years ago to Washington, D.C. We'd never been together.

And we had a great time because, of course, we're big history nerds, so we saw all the sites. We're history hose, Kristen. We're history hose, and we were hoeing it up all over that town. We were slutting it up, getting real nasty in D.C. And the big exciting thing for me was we stayed at the Willard Hotel, which is like this historic hotel. It was very fancy, very centrally located, very cool. Very historic. They're historic.

Also, very expensive. Oh, well, I have a soundbite for that. You sure do. Very expensive. In fact, it was so expensive that do you remember what? happened one evening when I got a little hungry late at night in that hotel? Yeah, we've told the story, I think. Okay.

Well, I don't, you wanted a bag of potato chips, which, you know, they have snacks in the room, but if you take one of those snacks, they charge your room, and that bag of chips was, what, $9? It was $12. $12 for a little bag of chips. Norman, how dare you? You would put in your kids' lunchbox. I hadn't eaten in upwards of three hours.

Oh, poor you. I will never forget. You, you know, we're staying in this fancy hotel, having a lovely time. I'm feeling a little hungry. The restaurants are closed. And I was eyeballing those chips. And you were like, don't you dare. Don't you dare eat those chips.

I was like, I would rather us DoorDash or Grubhub something. Or starve. To eat those $12 bag of chips. I went to sleep slightly peckish that night, folks. but don't cry for me. Okay, but the reason I got so excited when you mentioned the Willard was, you know, Francis was new to D.C., didn't know how things worked, and her first trip down there for like all the big hoopla,

I guess she didn't really realize that you needed to really secure your hotel room ahead of time. So she and Susanna got stuck at the Willard, which at that point, you know, it was still, it had serious history. historical significance, but it had fallen on hard times, and it was very un-stylish to the point that Susanna laughed at the place because it was so uncool. So there was this big passage in Kirsten Downey's book all about how they had to stay at the shitty Willard. Well, the Willard's very nice today. Yeah, they've cleaned it up a bit. Yeah. Anyway, so Francis is feeling stressed. Um, she was

just the breadwinner of the family, she was the sole earner for her family. And now she had the incredible burden slash honor of becoming the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet. The pressure's on. No shit. It was a big deal. She landed that role just a little more than a decade after American women gained the right to vote. How wild is that? It still amazes me. It took until the 1920s for that to happen. Yeah. Was it the 1920s? It was 1920 when every, everyone, yeah.

When women could finally vote that. Well, and I shouldn't say every woman. I'm sure black women didn't have that privilege. Good Lord. What a country. Not pretty sure it extended to black women too. Well, sure. Technically, yes, just like all men got it,

but then it was until the 60s with voting rights. Oh, you're talking about like discrimination and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was still a problem. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, you should be able to go to the polls and not worry about being, you know, I don't know, pie to the face. I'm not sure what they were doing.

Probably something way scarier than that now that that comes out of my mouth. Hell, they're doing it today in Georgia. You can't give someone a bottle of water if they're standing in line to vote. Hey, as Paul Abdul says. I think that's a permanent addition to the sound board. It better be. I love it. It applies to every damn thing we talk about on here.

Progress, baby. Hard to come by. So this is an incredible accomplishment. Huge victory. Yay, yeah, yay. But was everyone happy? No. Honeycomb big.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is that the honeycomb jingle? It's an old honeycomb jingle, yeah. What brought that on? I don't know. The way you said, no, it made me think, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, great. Now we all want delicious honeycomb cereal.

No, no one has ever seen. said that. Me, want honeycomb. You remember that? I do. I found it so annoying. That little bee. A little creature.

It wasn't a bee. He was like a weird, like Tasmanian devil ripoff thing. Oh, yeah, you're right. And he was like a 3D animated. Me want honeycomb. And he like, it was stupid. Yes. But I'm glad you brought it up.

The bee, you are thinking of the Honey Nut Cheerios mascot. Perhaps I am. I came up with a new jingle for that. that cereal. You did? Nobody can say no to the motherfucking taste of hunting not gibbios. That's a really good jingle. Thank you.

It makes me want some. Right? It feels kind of hardcore. It kind of gets in your face, but it's also a little relaxing and, you know, pleasing to the ears. It's like if John Legend sang you a beautiful song, but he just said a lot of swear words in the song, too. That's all I've ever wanted right there. Thank you, Norman. So not everyone was happy with Francis's appointment,

including that weird Tasmanian devil rip-off from the Honeynut Cheerio. Oh, wait, I mixed them. I'm sorry. They weren't happy. Hang on. I'm going to figure out his name. Crazy craving. A wild-haired marsupial-like character who rabidly craves honeycomb.

Is it with two Ks? Like the KKK? No, I'm saying like crazy with a K. No. It was to see crazy craving. Okay, well, at least they did that for me. I appreciate that. Anyway, labor leaders were pissed off about this appointment.

Oh, naturally. Yeah, they thought FDR should have given the job to one of them. Francis Perkins is the enemy to these labor leaders. She is fucking up their shit. Norman, I ask you, what the hell was the president thinking? making a woman the Secretary of Labor in this economy? Francis had to deal with that outrage, and she also had to deal with a different brand of sexist bullshit.

This one's kind of fun. The fact that she was a woman in a position that had traditionally been held by men, and by traditionally, I mean always, meant that things that should have been pretty mundane, non-issues were suddenly very controversial. Ooh, like what? Okay, like, OMG. She is a woman.

But when she's at an official event, where does she sit? Does she sit where the Secretary of Labor would normally sit? Well, yeah. No! Isn't she the Secretary of Labor? Good heavens! Francis saw this controversy coming from a mile away. In the previous administration, the media had had a field day over a perceived rivalry between two women.

So Teddy Roosevelt's daughter Alice and the sister of the vice. Vice President, Dolly Gann, you know, there had been this big stink about which one of these ladies outranked the other because their ranking would impact seating arrangements. And there had been a lot of newspaper articles written about this feud between these two women. And in Francis's view, the whole thing had been blown out of proportion in an effort to pit these two women against each other. Fun fact, Alice Roosevelt was at the 1904 World's Fair. Alice Roosevelt has been suggested as a topic many times. She must be a fascinating lady. Future topic?

Hmm. Everyone, just so you know, to annoy me now, Norm will sometimes say randomly, Future topic? Yeah. We're just like doing something around the house. And it's never a topic worthy of coverage. On the last episode,

I said I was going to do an episode on why Worcester, Massachusetts is spelled, W-O-R-C-E-S-T-E-R, but pronounced Worcester. I didn't think you were going to spell that correctly. You seemed to lose confidence about halfway through. I did it. Well, that's why it's a future topic. Dear God, I hope not. So Francis saw that controversy coming.

And when people tried that shit with her, she was like, uh-uh, nope, not doing this. Here's my solution. Normally, yes, the Secretary of Labor would sit with the other high-ranking dudes. I'll sit with the wives. They're more fun to talk to anyway. Just put me where the wife of the Secretary of Labor would normally sit. No, no, no, no, no.

she should have listened to that song from the movie Goodberger. What? I'm a dude. He's a dude. She's a dude. We're all dudes. Hey. I think this was really smart. Why didn't she say I want to sit where the Secretary of Labor sits? I think it was a very calculated move. In what way? She is sacrificing ego.

Mm-hmm. And of course, it's not right. It's total bullshit. Right. But she wants to get shit done. She wants to get serious stuff done. Yes. She had a huge list of demands. And in order to do that, she needed to be in good with people.

And a big part of getting stuff done, I think as a woman, especially at that time, is I need them to like me. You know, they're going to be primed to not like me. But if I say, oh, actually, I'd prefer to sit with the wives. Great. Maybe they're a little less threatened. Maybe they won't really see me coming when I start doing some real. shit here politically. Well, this is reminding me of in our last episode when she started dressing more motherly.

Yeah. Because that was the only way people would take her seriously. Yeah, she dressed much older. Yeah, because you're right. Her priority was, I have to get the work done. But no, it's not right. It sucks. Yeah, but when you explain it like that, I understand why she did it.

Yeah. That's not what's important. Where I sit at this table is not important. What's important is I pass these policies to help the American people. Yeah. And if this makes all the dudes feel a little more comfortable, a little more at ease, great. I still think she would have really liked the Good Burger song, though. I'm standing by this.

Okay. I'm not backing down. Francis was able to use her wits to get herself out of some sticky situations publicly. But the real mess was when she showed up in Washington. D.C. and tried to get this. Do her job. God damn it. When she got started, one of the first things she had to do was like, be like, hey, okay, you guys have got to go now. I'm in charge now.

Wait, so the old administration was still there and they were. So Republicans had been in power for so long that I guess they really thought that maybe they could just stay and maybe she'd just not worry about showing up and being Secretary of labor. Uh-huh. Part of the reason the old guard didn't want her to take over was because at that time, the labor department was corrupt as hell. Yeah.

They were getting kickbacks from everybody. And boy, oh boy, were they having fun tormenting immigrants? The department routinely arrested immigrants without telling them what the charges were. And then, you know, oopsies maybe got some money out of them. Welcome to America. Shaked them down? Yep. Shook them real good.

Shook them down. T'was a shakedown. A real shakedown. So pretty early on, Francis had to send out a memo to the labor department and being like, hey, new rule, don't be xenophobic. We're not doing that anymore. Also, by the way, I'm desegregating the lunchroom, partly because racism sucks, but also because black people were being forced to eat at their desks. And that brought in a bunch of roaches. So deal with it.

It was like, Chach, Chach, Changes. It was like Joe's apartment up in there. Joe's apartment. Don't you remember that movie Joe's apartment? No. Did you make that up? That's a terrible name.

No, it was MTV's very first movie, I'm pretty sure. Norman, no one remembers this. It was, I think it was Jerry O'Connell. Oh, my God. And he had a bunch of roaches in his apartment, and they talked to him and stuff. That's disgusting. It was pretty decent movie. Oh, it sounds great.

I'm sure we've all heard of it. Okay, you know what? We're going to get some comments. I loved Joe's apartment. Thank you, Norman. I've got it on VHS. Thank you, Norm. That is why I am leaving Kristen's night guard and joining the Norm Troopers.

Wow. That's how I lose them every time. Francis was in charge of a lot of people. And, you know, sometimes it's hard to know where exactly that fishy scent is coming from. But it didn't take Francis long to figure out that there was this section of the labor department that was known to be super corrupt. I was thinking someone was microwaving some salmon in the letting the break room. Which should be a crime.

I guess microwaves weren't around yet. No. So luckily, that particular section was about to lose funding. So Francis was like, okay, I'm just going to let these dudes go a little early. Bing, bang, boom, problem solved. Except not long after she got rid of those. dudes. She showed up to the office late at night to finish up some work, and she discovered some of those guys who she just fired in the office after hours, like little sketchball

weasels helping themselves to government files. Oh, can't do that. So there's Francis, staring at these guys, and right next to her is the world's oldest security guard, who, God bless him, is not equipped to fight off. O.G. Watergate. And Francis was like, um, hello. O.G. Watergate. Hello. What are you all doing? And they were like, um, we're just here collecting our personal belongings. And she was like, those don't look like personal belongings. They belong to the federal government. Yeah. Those are government documents. And they kind of stared at her. And she was like, okay, time for you to leave now. And they did that thing.

where they all left kind of slowly. And then when she turned around, they ran back into the room. No. Anyway, I'm guessing that old security guard didn't need to eat his prunes that night. Did I ever tell you about when I served at the Battle of Antietam in 1862? That's probably the security guard. Yes, 100%. Wait, what was that prune comment?

Are you serious? Say it again. Sorry. Was my joke so sophisticated that it flew right over your head? I think so. I said that that old security guard probably didn't need to eat his prunes that night. He didn't need to? Right, because he shat his pants, because he was so afraid that he was going to have to actually do something about these guys. Okay. Norm. Sorry. I will say, man, prunes will run through you.

They'll get the job done, won't they? One of my favorite jokes from Hey Arnold was a fake cereal called Prune Brand. It showed an old man on the box like straining to poop. It was great. Yeah, pull up a picture of that, Joe. I'm sure the internet loves that as well. So the next day after this whole debacle, Francis had the locks changed on the building. Hell yeah.

Mm-hmm. Get out, leave right now. See it. of you and me. You can leave those government docks where you found them. Did you microwave salmon in the break room? Because something smells real fishy. And I'd like for you to leave.

Just leave. Now if you're wondering, hmm, was Francis right to be suspicious of those guys? Maybe they really were at the office just picking up their old cooch balls and favorite staplers. The highest-ranking dude she caught that night was later revealed to have ties to gangsters. And in 1947, he and the former wartime chairman for the House Military Affairs Committee

went on trial for bribery and a bunch of other shit. And that case was a little tough to prosecute. You know why? Because someone broke in after hours and stole some of the prosecution's files. Hmm. It's a real mystery. Who could have done this? But the prosecutor must have had everything backed up on a floppy disc or something

because the dudes were found guilty and went to prison. It wasn't a floppy disc, Kristen. Those hadn't been invented yet. Fine, it was a hard disc. Good grief. Anyway, all that to say, Francis had a lot of cleaning up to do. We call them erect discs. Stop it. They hold way more storage.

All that to say, Francis had a lot of cleaning up to do before she could get down to some actual work in the labor department. But doing actual work is tough when so many people are rooting for you to fail. Yeah, man, that must have been very frustrating. I don't know how someone gets through this. Like, you're going to hear some stuff. Francis was very aware that as the first woman in her position, she had a lot of eyes on her.

And again, you know, there's some argument over whether Francis's distrust of journalists made things worse for her. I can't imagine that that's true, but maybe it is. People who actually knew her said she was really funny. She had a dry sense of humor, very sociable, you know, just a great person. But in front of the press, she was guarded. She never spoke off the cuff. And FDR and Eleanor, you know, they courted the press. They were totally different.

But Francis did everything she could to get away from reporters. One time, some reporters tried to talk to her when she was walking into a hotel. And she was like, oh, hey, did you guys know that Greta Garbo is staying on the third floor? And they were like, holy shit! And they skiddleeddled. And Francis was just like, because she made that up. Man, so gullible. I'm sure she said it in a very believable way.

Well, of course, you would believe the Secretary of Labor. Uh-huh. But she wasn't always able to lie her way out of interacting with the press. And there were so many questions to dodge, including really basic questions like, where do you live? Where's your husband? How's your daughter doing? Where do you live? That was more from like staff members and stuff. Oh, okay.

This was a time when mental illnesses were much more stigmatized. And here's something fun. It was also pretty common for people to believe. that if a child had some kind of mental illness, then it had to be someone's fault. And it was always the mom's fault. Because she's the one that gave birth to the child. Well, no, it's that she's bad at being a mom. Oh, didn't raise the child properly.

Right. And if she worked outside the home, well, there you go. Oh, yeah. You're neglecting your child, and that's why they have melancholy. Yeah. Ditto for husbands. If a married man wasn't doing well, it's probably his wife's fault. It was that perfect, obnoxious, impossible thing where if the woman worked, then she caused the mental illness. But at the same time, if the woman didn't work, then who the hell was going to pay for her loved one's medical care? It's hard to know how much of that messaging Francis internalized. But we do know that she really tried to protect her privacy and her family's privacy. And we also know, that that set her at a disadvantage in Washington, D.C., because women were supposed to entertain. They're supposed to be dropping calling cards everywhere. But how do you leave a calling card for Francis Perkins if she won't tell you where she lives?

Also, Francis didn't really have time to go around dropping calling cards because she was working all day. Yeah, well, wait a minute. What is the calling card for? What is... This was how the social system worked in D.C., and I'm sure it's how it worked in New York City, too. but like women would go calling on one another.

And that's how you would meet up and you'd have conversations and you'd make these social connections. And it was very important that you do that. So just like social society in D.C. Sure. And, you know, if you're a man in a prominent position, it's very important that you have a wife who's doing that for you. And if not a wife, maybe a sister steps in, a daughter, you know, it's not a one point. person job. Only one person gets paid, though. That's fun. Yeah. Well, not long after she moved to D.C., Francis found a solution to this problem. She moved in with her long-term friend, Mary Harriman Rumsey.

Now, this is a new person. I've not heard this name before. This is true. Okay, here's the thing about Mary. Mary had been the hot young bachelorette in her day, okay? Because she was the oldest child of a railroad tycoon. cha-ching. Ooh. So when it was time for her to get married, everyone was like, ooh, which rich hottie is she going to choose? Oh, my God. And her dad was like, I'd better pay to have an artist do a sculpture of her.

And then, oops, fudge, stripes, Mary fell in love with the sculptor. Oh. And they got married and they had three kids. I'm in love with a sculptor. He's got it. He flaunted. He wants it. That's a weird.

segue into he did have a drinking problem. Oh, no. And he died in a car accident. Oh, damn it. Well, the song still applies. So Mary became a widow, and she seemed to enjoy that lifestyle. She never remarried. Instead, she just spent more time doing what she loved.

And you know what? Many of the things she loved doing were not even remotely problematic, many of them. Hmm. Like what? Okay, so in a lot of ways, she was politically aligned with Francis. She helped start the Junior League. She became the chair of the Consumer Advisory Board. She championed a lot of great causes.

Except, oh, shit, twas the 1930s norm. Yep. And this really fun, cool thing was a big, do you know what I'm about to say? Well, go on. I need a few more clues. What was the? The 1930s. Yeah, it's the 1930s.

It's the 1930s. Okay. And some new idea is kind of sweeping the nation, and a lot of the elites are really into it. They love it. Croquet. Why would that be problematic? I don't know. I'm talking about eugenics, baby.

Ah, yeah. Could we breed the perfect humans? We should definitely try. Well, hey, go to Nazi Germany. They're doing it. Oh, well, I was about to mention that pesky Hitler fella. Oh, well, who cares about him? I'm sure he won't be a big problem.

It's the 1930s. America's not worried about it. Yeah, that's an ocean away. Mm-hmm. Mary was so into eugenics that her friends nicknamed her Eugenia. What the fuck? Why is eugenics your hobby? I don't know that it's a hobby necessarily, but she was into it.

If she's so into it, it's like a hobby. Yeah, it's gross. Just go play croquet. Much less problematic. Anyway, so that's about her. Yeah. I guess Francis looked past that, huh? I think so.

Yeah. The thing is, Francis and Mary were very, very, very good friends. Francis really valued her relationship with Mary. And Mary generously allowed Frances and Susanna to live with her in her fabulous Georgetown townhouse. Oh, Susanna, I want you to live with me. I live in a Georgetown townhouse. townhouse and eugenics is for me. Oh, God.

You know, well done, Norm. I, you know what? There aren't enough upbeat songs about eugenics. I'm always saying that. It's just a song that Mary would have sung. Uh-huh. To Francis's daughter when she invited her to live with her. Absolutely.

Yeah. So this was a great arrangement, not just because it was a wonderful place to live, but because Mary was very social and very well connected. This relationship allowed Francis to participate in the part of politics that happens outside of cabinet meetings. Mary and Francis entertained all kinds of fancy folks at their home. They were very close. They raised two dogs together. It's possible that their relationship was just simply a mutually beneficial friendship.

Were there any rumblings at the time of their relationship? Like, hmm, interesting. I'm going to tell you a little more. Okay. Okay, first more on the, this is just a mutually beneficial friendship category. Okay. Having a presidential cabinet member living in her home raised Mary's status. So good for her.

And in Mary, Frances had what all other cabinet members had. A wife, basically. Someone to do the social legwork. Someone to build connections. Someone to be her cheerleader. We all need a wife. wife. We all do. Okay. Now, were they more than friends? We do not know, but I kind of think so. At least I kind of hope so. You hope so. You know, I was thinking about this today and like maybe it's just me looking at things too much through my own view because there are a lot of people who don't need romantic relationships.

Sure. And like that's, that's fine. I don't know. I think, especially as this story, goes on, you'll see some of the unfair attacks on Francis. And I guess I just am kind of hoping that she had a really nice romantic relationship to come home to. Yeah, like a partner. Yeah. Absolutely. I get it. But I mean, a friendship is good, too. Sure. I just know sometimes you need to bang it out after a long day. That's right. Sometimes. And you know she had some stressful days. Well, absolutely. Mm-hmm. We also know that Francis did have a lot of LGBT friends, and, like, you know, it's not like it's contagious or anything, but I don't know.

Back then, they probably thought it was. I'm sure they did. You've caught the lesbian. Oh, heavens. Oh, heavens. Here's the other thing. We know that Francis pointedly didn't talk about Mary much, and her biographer, pointed out that Francis didn't even talk about Mary, sometimes in situations where it would be

totally normal to talk about Mary. I was going to say, it seems like that's kind of her M.O. Like Francis didn't really talk about much at all. She distrusted the press and all that. So it's like, well, of course she wouldn't talk about Mary. But you're saying the author says even in situations where she could talk about Mary, she didn't. Right.

Which to me says I'm covering something up. So, but who knows, maybe they were friends, maybe they were more, but what's definitely clear is that they both cherished and benefited from their relationship. Living with Mary allowed Frances to focus on big, impactful work. And that needed to happen because unemployment was nuts so bananas. The Great Depression was indeed depressing. And Francis was pretty sure that a big part of the solution was to create public works programs. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good idea. She was like, the government can help put people back to work. We can help revitalize industries that are hurting. Let's create some jobs.

New bridges everywhere. New post offices. Schools, roads, public housing. Let's put a mural on every bathroom. Just a Tasmanian devil. A mural on every bathroom. She didn't really say that, but you get the idea. Let's just create some jobs.

Let's do some stuff. It's always bridges. I feel like bridge. bridges is like... Yeah. Whenever I think of public works, it's like... Or infrastructure. Uh-huh.

Bridges comes to mind. Everyone talks about bridges. We've got to put up bridges. Find a little body of water and let's build a bridge over it. Uh-huh. We got to puddle out back. But Francis wasn't the only person in Washington who was certain that they knew how to revive the economy.

Ooh, a rival appears. There were all kinds of groups popping up certain that they're... idea was the idea. So FDR was like, Francis, I want you to go investigate. These different groups are in silos and I want to know what everyone's thinking. And Norman, if you are wondering, gee, how did all those dudes feel about Francis showing up to their meetings? They loved it. Yeah. And when they found out that she was there. Very welcoming, very accepting. We're so happy to have you here. Francis, the first female presidential cabinet member. It's quite an honor to have you here.

Mm-hmm. And we're going to respectfully listen to everything you say. Oh, no. That's not how it went. Instead, they'd be like, oh, you really don't want to be here, darling. Go ahead and scoot on out. And she was like, actually the president sent me. And then they had to be like, oh, God damn it.

So she went to all these meetings. And in the end, she created a proposal, which included all the best ideas, including, of course, her public works plan. Do you have some of the other ideas? Were there any really terrible ideas? Well, I'm sure there were, but we'll, you know, we'll get to it. Just keep your pants on or your shorts on, as it were. I do have my shorts on.

Okay, this plan was called the National Industrial Recovery Act, and it was shortened to the NRA, which I find so confusing. Okay. It's going to be great, the best. Except. Right before this bill was about to make its big splashy debut, Francis found out that the budget director, Lewis Douglas, aka this bitch, had talked FDR into removing public works from the NRA bill. Why? Okay, well, in his defense, Francis's public work stuff was going to cost about $3.3 billion, which I didn't even bother to adjust for inflation. That's a lot even today. It's so much. And, you know, as head budget boy, he just thought that was a little too steep.

But Francis was certain that it would be worth it and that it would give the American economy a badly needed boost. By that point, she knew FDR so well. And she knew that he had this very dumb habit of just doing what people advised him to do without always thinking it through. So she was like, okay, okay, when does the bill go public? When does this all get announced? All right, cool. Like five minutes before that happens, I'm going to need a meeting with the president. So she got that meeting.

Kind of get that last word in. Yes. Yeah. Honestly, this is what they say about Trump sometimes. That it's just like whoever he talked to last. I hate to compare Trump to FDR, but. They're very similar. Shut up.

Yeah. Have the same ideas. Uh-huh. Yeah. In that meeting, she convinced him to put public works back into the NRA. And he was like, okay. Uh-huh. Okay.

Now, did she call up budget director Louis Douglas? Hell no. And Danielle suck on that. I'd like to think she didn't bloat, but maybe she did. So in June of 1933, the NRA made its splashy debut. It was a big deal, not just for the jobs it created, an estimated 2 million people got jobs thanks to these public works projects. Tasmanian devils on every bathroom. A wiener schnitzel in every neighborhood, folks.

The government is making it happen. Oh, God bless it. Okay, so here's the other thing. You asked about other things. Yeah, I want to hear some of the other ideas that people had. Collective bargaining rights. Ooh. American employees could organize now.

Oh, that's a big deal. That's a huge deal. Mm-hmm. Except... Oh, what? Well, the problem with that idea and some of the others was that employers didn't actually have to follow the NRA? You know, if they didn't, there were no legal repercussions.

This was kind of a volunteering thing. Like, yeah, we're all in this together. Some people didn't want to participate. And eventually in 1935, the Supreme Court was like, yeah, most of the NRA is unconstitutional. We're throwing it out. Damn Supreme Court. But they kept the public work stuff, so I guess that was cool. Yeah, but this Wiener-Schneitzel.

was only half built. What am I going to get chili cheese fries? What am I going to do with all these wieners? Frances was obviously happy that the public work stuff survived, but she really wanted to fix what had gone wrong with the rest of the NRA. She still believed in the right to a shorter work week. She still believed in the importance of a living wage. She wanted to abolish child labor.

So she worked and worked and worked and worked drafting new bills and making political connections. And the great irony is that this woman, who made it her mission to improve people's lives by limiting their working hours, she worked insane hours. This lady was the queen of the 15-hour workday. She outworked everybody. Yeah, I mentioned this in the last episode.

Like, the shit she was doing, I was just like, man, she was putting in work. It was exhausting. I wish I had this. I don't. I do. Okay. Why do you wish that? I didn't get so much shit done.

I think people do this because they're running from themselves. I mean, yes, but I just admire, like, all the work she did. Well, absolutely. I admire all she accomplished. But I understand it's probably not healthy. Probably get some stuff going on. You're putting all of your time and energy into work rather than other stuff, because life's about more than work. But I just, I don't know, I respect and admire all the work she did.

Yeah. Got to find a balance, you know. Oh, speaking of balance. Yeah. Okay, so she worked, worked, worked all day long. And no one can really keep up that pace. That's kind of ridiculous. Absolutely.

So the fun side effect is that her health would inevitably suffer. And usually about once a year, she'd haul ass up to Newcastle, Maine, which was the home of her mother's family farm. And it's like a place you can go visit and see today. Oh, still there? Yeah. Wait a minute. It's the Francis Perkins Center, and we need to go. Oh, we're going to Maine?

We're going to Maine, baby. Okay. Just in time for the winter. The best time to visit Maine. Couldn't have planned it better. Bit tickets are cheap. Sometimes she'd get up to Maine and be so exhausted that she'd just lay in bed for like two weeks straight, and Susanna would have to just bring her food. That sounds wonderful.

To be passed out in bed for two weeks, you can't move. Santa's got to bring you broth. And someone's bringing you food every day? You know she's not bringing good stuff. You know, it's just all, you know, sad, clear soups. Well, they couldn't finish that wiener schnitzel. So, yeah, you're going to get soup now. Way to go. Kitchen Nightmares was not invented yet. What would you even do if you were depressed and in bed? TV wasn't even around yet, Kristen. Yeah, yeah. Maybe they had a radio version of Kitchen Nightmares. Audio only. So, yeah, work-life balance. wasn't really a thing for Francis. It was like work tirelessly and then collapse in Maine, which I guess works for some folks. Yeah. So Francis is working super hard, almost as hard as two podcasters, which, you know, no one can even imagine. It's the hardest job in the world. So she got back to work, and here's what she did next. Francis wanted to take the unemployment program that she'd done for New York and make it into a national program. But the timing was kind of weird.

In the mid-30s, people were way more concerned. concerned about the effect that the Great Depression was having on old people. At that time, most old folks had no savings. And there were very few jobs available. And of course, those jobs weren't going to old people. They were going to young people. That's really interesting. Why? I just think it's interesting that back then, people were really concerned for old people and how they were going to survive the Great Depression. I feel like today, old people are kind of forgotten sometimes now. Yeah. And I don't know. I don't know what the driving factor was, but for a lot of people, it was like, if all the older folks have no money, then they would have to rely on their children. And that means that the children probably aren't going to have any money when they grow up and get old. So like that it was a big, yeah. I get you. And, you know, if you didn't have children who you could rely on for support, I mean, you were just screwed.

Speaking of old people, my grandma, my mom has made it to Michigan to check on grandma. Mm-hmm. And she's concerned that my grandma is not eating enough. Sure. And so she suggested to my grandma, hey, why don't you get meals on wheels? Like, my grandma can definitely afford it. And- Well, I think meals on wheels is free, isn't it?

Is it? I don't know. Well, even better. Okay. But yeah, my grandma would qualify for meals on wheels, and they'd deliver her meals every day. And my grandma was like, I am not doing meals on wheels. That is for old people. My grandma is 86, by the way.

Norm, this is a thing. This is a thing. My grandma Pitts, my dad's mom, I think she was in her 80s when some older ladies, and by older, I mean, her age, invited her, I think it was to lunch or something. And my dad was like, why aren't you going? And she was like, I don't want to be hanging out with those old women. I was like, what? Ma'am. Check the mirror.

Holy moly. Is this what the future is for us? Definitely. Getting really old, but somehow thinking everyone else is old except for us. A lot of fun stuff to look forward to. Oh, great. Well, we do have social security, so that'll be good. Well, and then, you know, my grandma didn't want meals on wheels because it was for old people.

Right. She's like, I'll just order from a restaurant. She's way too hot and young for that. She said, I'll just order from a restaurant and have it delivered. And my mom was like, do you even know how to do that? Like, do you know about DoorDash? Do you know about Grubhub? These are rude questions.

And my grandma was like, well, I'm just going to call the restaurant and say, I want this and have them delivered to me. And my mom was like, that's not how it. It works. Some restaurants do deliver on their own. Some do, yeah. But most don't, depending on where you live, I guess. But, like, yeah, it's, it's been a fun visit so far with grandma. I just hope your mom doesn't try to keep pressuring her into doing old people shit, you know.

So something big needed to be done. For the old people. For the old folks. And Francis told FDR, look, we're at this crucial moment. in time. If we combine an unemployment bill with something to help old folks, we could maybe do something that could benefit everyone. And FDR was like, okay, yeah, you're probably right, but I don't want people to get something for nothing. That's communism. He was really worried that we were going to copy like... The UK. Yes, yes. He was very concerned about that. His other concern

was he wanted whatever they did to be permanent. And the only way to make it permanent was to create a program that didn't rely on government money. And Francis was like, okay, cool, that sounds totally impossible. But, you know, they put together a little cabinet committee to figure it out. And the cabinet committee was like, uh, this is absolutely impossible. But then, one day, Francis was at a little party and she was hanging out with Supreme Court Justice Harlan Stone, who.

had the coolest name anyone's ever come up with. That is a good name. I was literally about to comment that. What a great name. That's romance book name. Harlan Stone is going to do some stuff. Jack Iron Chest. So she's telling Harlan Stone about all her deep fantasies for creating social safety nets.

I'm about to bust. And she was mentioning her fear, which was also FDR's fear, that they would create this wonderful program, and before it even got off the ground, some assholes would bring it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court would declare it unconstitutional. So Harlan Stone narrowed his eyes. You give her some pointers? Took off his shirt. He was all oiled up immediately somehow. Oh, just finished a workout. And he whispered to her, the taxing power, my dear, the taxing power. Oh, make it a tax. For Francis, this was a huge moment.

Taxes, baby! If people paid in, then they could sidestep FDR's fears about people getting something for nothing, because it was their money. And if people paid in, it'd be really hard. Ideally, damn near impossible for the government to ever get rid of the program. The funny thing was, Harlan Stone wasn't the only Supreme Court Justice to quietly float that idea to Francis. Oh? another Supreme Court Justice, Harvey Iron Chest or whatever, he had shared the same idea with his daughter.

And when his daughter saw Francis at a New Year's Eve party, she told Francis that her best bet was to do the program through taxes. So Francis goes back to her committee and she's like, I came up with a great idea. It's taxes. This definitely didn't come from two Supreme Court justices. Don't worry about it. So Francis... Hey, whatever. I mean, I think it's great.

that she was able to get that advice. Absolutely. This is why it's so important to be connected well socially. So Francis and her committee came up with this big, complicated, brilliant plan that would save countless Americans for decades to come. But the funny thing was... What? It wasn't initially popular. We're talking about Social Security, right?

Yeah, and everything that goes with it. At the time, this dude named Francis Townsend was like, excuse me, I have a great. plan, the government should give $200 per month to every American over age 60. Universal basic income? I guess so, yeah. And of course, people really wanted that. In other words, it was Francis Perkins' unsexy but well-thought-out plan versus Francis Townsend's very sexy and really not very well-thought-out plan.

Yeah, and like maybe not sustainable. Exactly. That would get, here's a thing. That can happen. Yeah. But I don't think it can happen in the United States. I think it's got to be way more protected. Otherwise, it would get thrown out.

So it was around this time that the negativity toward Francis Perkins really heated up. Republicans in the House and Senate hated this plan for old age insurance. And some Democrats in the House and Senate agreed with them. So she's getting it from all sides. It's like there's the more liberal people who want the $200 a month. There's the more conservative people who, I guess, want nothing. Well, yeah, they don't want to spend money. And in the midst of all of this, all this incredibly important work, Mary Harriman Rumsey, the woman who Francis lived with,

and the woman who, at the very least, was her dear friend, died. Oh. Mary had been riding horses with friends, and her horse stopped short. and she fell off and the horse fell on top of her. Oh. Mary broke her hip, a couple ribs. They rushed her to the hospital. It looked like she'd be okay.

I mean, she was 52 and she was in good health. Yeah. But all of a sudden, at the hospital, she took a really bad turn and she died. Francis was there when Mary died. And so were Mary's children. Francis always suspected that Mary had died from a bad blood transfusion. which I think makes perfect sense if she looks like she's doing fine and then all of a sudden takes a nose dive. Sure.

It had to have been a devastating loss. And letters from Francis's friends indicate that they understood that she was dealing with a very significant loss. But it's hard to know if Francis had much time to grieve. Almost immediately she had to find a new place to live. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I didn't think about that. Not to mention all the political stuff that's going on. Sure.

But she found a home with a widow named Caroline Love O'Day. Another woman. Yeah. Well, she couldn't shack up with a dude. Well, could she just shack up by herself with her daughter? I don't think she could afford it. Really? As the Secretary of Labor? Okay. See, that's the thing. In the biography I read, there was a lot of talk about money.

And I do know that Paul was in very expensive sanatoriums. So obviously that costs something. Susanna's schooling cost quite a bit. Francis kept the apartment in New York, which I'm sure was also another big expense. Oh, so yeah. So all of her money's going to other places. Right, right. But, you know, she gets together with Caroline,

and Caroline had just been elected to Congress for New York. And they'd known each other for more than 10 years, and they were very politically aligned. And they did kind of the same thing that Francis and Mary had done. They entertained. They had a wonderful relationship. And just like with Mary, Francis never really talked about her relationship with Caroline. Do you suspect a romantic relationship?

I hope. But again, that's just me being like, everyone should have a romantic relationship, which not everybody needs or wants. Everyone should have a romantic relationship. That's just me being ridiculous, I think. That's your history ho fan fiction. That is my history ho fan fiction, honestly. I also just kind of think it kind of makes sense.

Francis got rid of a lot of her personal letters before she died, and I wonder what was in them, you know. Sure, at the time, it was somewhat shameful to have a gay relationship, right? So she probably wanted to get rid of all the evidence, maybe. Again, we don't even know if she... We don't know, yeah. But this is in your... We're in your fan fiction right now. Oh, we're in my fan fiction.

Yeah. Where she was like making the 40-hour work week happen. And then also going home and having just like the cutest little lesbian relationship back home. And none of those assholes in Congress were the wiser. What a great book. All right. So meanwhile, back at work, Francis was trying like hell. move this bill forward. The Social Security Act, as Francis envisioned it, would be incredible.

It would ensure that people older than 65 would have money coming in. It would create unemployment insurance. It would establish aid to families that were headed by single mothers. It would add funding for children in need, pensions for people with disabilities, and of course, universal health care. So this bill got changed quite a bit. think was the most opposed to universal health care? A single person or an organization? Organization. Was it a cigarette company? No. The American Medical Association. Interesting. They were very vocally opposed to the idea of universal health care and they fought it really hard. Why? So Kirsten Downey goes into this in her book. That year,

the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association referred to this universal health care plan as socialized medicine. Socialism, yep. Still being said today. Yeah. And so the fuck what, if it is socialized medicine. I'm so tired of that term. And how it's like, oh, naughty word, socialism.

Hey, the fucking fire department and the police department is socialism. Who cares? If it helps people, let's do it. Yeah, it depends on... Let's find a way to make it work. It depends on what your values are. My guess is that the members of the AMA were worried about their money. Ask me anything.

AMA, ask me anything. What do you think about universal health care? I think it's socialism. But it's funny. I mean, you change up how someone might get paid. And some people are just opposed to change in general. So there's that. Like your grandma.

But, I mean, I used to work for a medical organization. And it's funny because, like, I remember it being a really good thing that we had our values set where the value is we want everyone to have access to health care. And so when, you know, so-called Obamacare came out and a lot of doctors were against it, it was like, well, too bad. so sad, one of our core values is we want everyone to get health care. Sure. So, yeah, we're not going to fight this. We're going to champion it. So frustrating.

The Affordable Care Act, it's not perfect. Of course not. It's a step in the right direction. Yeah. But it, like, did so many good things. And I have a feeling it's never going away. No. It's too popular.

Well, first of all, they've tried many times to get rid of it. It's not going anywhere. And that what you just said is perfect. It's too popular. It's too popular. That's the problem with trying to demonize something that people like. Yes. I mean.

I mean, look at abortion rights right now. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and said, send it back to the states. Let the states decide. Guess what? States are voting now on if they should enshrine abortion in their state constitution. And so far, I'm pretty sure every state that's voted on it, they have enshrined abortion rights into their constitution. Because the majority of Americans agree that we should be in control of our reproductive health. It's not the controversial issue that people want to make it out to be.

Not to say we all agree, but the majority is in agreement. We are voting on it this November for Missouri. I have a feeling it will pass. I sure hope so. Back to this. So the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association that year when all of this was being talked about made the totally funny and not at all sexist comment that this ridiculous plan for universal health care had come from Eleanor advising FDR in night conferences after Francis Perkins is. advised him during the day. Oh, so they're saying it's like some sexual favor thing?

Yeah. From Francis Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt? Yeah, so this idea came from women. So that's knock number one. But also, yeah, implying that it's sexual. A lot of people could not conceive, could not understand FDR and Francis Perkins' relationship. How could it be that she was in his cabinet by her own merit or because she was good for the job? How could there not be a sexual relationship?

How? How, I ask. Yeah, it's a real mystery. They're banging every day in those cabinet meetings. I just know it. So with all that opposition, universal health care had to go. That fucking sucks. It does suck. You think of all the times they've tried to make it happen.

and... Yeah, I think Harry Truman tried to make it happen. Future topic. Hillary Clinton tried. As First Lady? And, man, she got a lot of vitriol for that. But I think that's where some good did come out of that because a lot of children got health insurance because of those efforts.

But, you know, again, it's not the big one. It's not universal health care. So it sucked that that sacrifice had to be made. But again, it had to be made for the greater. or good. Yeah. So slowly the bill moved forward, but it moved forward with a pretty shitty caveat, courtesy of the Senate Finance Committee.

They approved of the bill with the following amendment. Are you ready? Yep. The Social Security Board would be technically under the Department of Labor, obviously. But the Secretary of Labor could not play any role in the hiring for that program. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, the program that she created. Yeah, so they're being little babies. Yeah, they didn't like Francis Perkins. They wanted to strip her of some of that power. But finally, in August of 1935, the economic security bill became the Social Security Act. The following year, nearly a million people received benefits through the Social Security Act. But on that momentous day that FDR signed that Social Security Act into law, Francis couldn't fully celebrate.

That day she found out that her husband Paul had escaped from his nurses and was nowhere to be found. Oh, he escaped the institution? I don't know if he was in an institution at this time. Sometimes he was in an institution. Other times he was at other locations, but, you know, she had attendance there. But he had disappeared. So she went back to New York. She did find him, got him back home, but it was awful.

And their daughter, Susanna, who was now off to college at Brenmar, which is another college that wishes it was as good as Simmons University. Of course. Susanna was doing seemingly well. She was really social, and of course people loved that she was so pretty and stylish. People loved how she dressed. Gucci socks? Gucci socks all the time, baby. But reading between the lines a bit, it seems.

that she might have struggled with an eating disorder. And while she was away at college, she experienced something similar to what her dad had gone through during his sophomore year at Dartmouth. She had what was referred to as a nervous breakdown. Again, I'm not sure what we would call it now, maybe bipolar. Yeah. But this set off a much more tense relationship

between Francis and Susanna. Francis wanted everything to be right. You know, she needed Susanna to be okay. But Susanna wasn't okay. Part of it could have been that Francis was dealing with an onslaught of criticism thanks to her job. And maybe it just freaked her out that if word got out about Susanna or Paul, she would face even more criticism. So, you know, she tried to kind of control more, but that just made Susanna even angrier. I mean, we all know how that goes. And once again, Francis threw herself back into work. Soon the Fair Labor Standards Act came into place again with Francis's involvement. And it accomplished so much of what she'd always envisioned for American workers. It established a minimum wage. It ended child labor and established the 40-hour work week. Hooray!

Yeah, so do you like having weekends? Do you like that your six-year-old isn't working at the local mill? You can thank Francis Perkins. We could use some help at the mill. We need someone to get that thing out of the mill. to get that thing out of the gear. And are that six-year-olds, little hands are perfect. Yeah.

P.S., was any of this easy? No. Her critics had the following things to say about her. She was a socialist. Yeah. She wasn't really American. She wasn't even born here. Worst of all, would not bang.

Oh, not hot. Yeah, not hot enough. I want a sexy cabinet member. I want the sexiest person in my. presidential cabinet. They wanted her out of office, out of power, but she had this annoying thing about just sticking around. You can't impedech cabinet members, can't you? Oh, oh, what? Does they impeach her? Hang on. FDR was really popular, and although his cabinet had changed up quite a bit, Francis was a mainstay. So the people who really hated her had to get creative

as they plotted to take her down. There are a lot of great things about FDR's presidency, but the big, undeniable stain on it was his approach to Adolf Hitler. Really? He ignored Hitler and all that stuff for too long. Well, most of the world did. Yeah.

As Secretary of Labor, Francis was in charge of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Ooh, this. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. And under the previous administration, there'd been this big crackdown on immigration. But when Francis came into power, she was like, ooh, we need to loosen up these restrictions, specifically so that Jewish people in Germany can come over here.

The State Department was pissed off, that Francis Perkins was trying to make it easier for Jewish people to flee Nazis. So they tried to thwart her efforts. But Francis found little ways to get people into the United States. She made it cheaper for people to get student visas. She worked with the German Jewish Children's Aid Organization to help bring over 400 Jewish children who didn't have financial sponsors. She talked FDR into giving temporary visas to approximately 12,000 German Jews. We can look back on that now and see that Francis was doing what was right and good,

but wow, it was not popular. Her stance toward immigration was especially tough to defend. during the Great Depression because Americans kept being like, these foreigners need to get out of here. They're taking our jobs. It did not matter that immigration was at an all-time low and that immigrants were absolutely not to blame for the Great Depression, but people wanted to believe that immigrants were to blame.

Yeah, well, they need a boogeyman, you know. Yeah. I can't remember the name of this incident, but I believe there is a ship with Jewish people on it that it got turned away and it went back to Europe. That's awful. Yeah. Future topic.

Oh, that'll be fun. Yeah, it'll be a hoop. Was that under FDR? I'm sure it was. Yeah, it would have to been. Yeah, the ship got denied. It could not, it was not allowed to come into port, and it had to just go back to Europe.

Can you imagine? No, no. So Francis had this unpopular stance, and she was doing too much politically, and she was also a woman, which we can all agree is unforgivable. And a lot of conservative politicians really hated her, but she hadn't really done anything to warrant being removed from office.

So her opponents got creative. Okay, so this Australian immigrant named Harry Bridges was an amazing union organizer, turns out, and he led a strike in California. And it was really successful. The working folk benefited tremendously. But obviously, that made him some enemies, and those enemies wanted him to be deported.

So Francis did call for an investigation into whether he should be deported, but she found the results inconclusive. A lot of the evidence against him was, you know, from kind of sketchy folks who worked on behalf of these big businesses. You know, it was just kind of like, eh. So he wasn't deported. Francis didn't want her department to be used to boot out immigrants whose only crime was being good at organizing unions. So Harry stayed in the United States, and that made some people really. mad and since he couldn't be deported, they decided to go after Francis Perkins instead. Because it's like, you're the reason he got to stay. Let's get her. And who knows if it was even

that simple? Part of me feels like when you really hate someone and you want him out of office, it's like, where's the excuse? Where's the weak link? What do we do? And, you know, maybe this was it. They put a dead horse in her bed. I do not know. Send a message. In 1939, Congress sought to impeach Francis for, quote, protecting from deportation certain aliens. Hmm. This was wild and really rare. It had been decades since anyone had tried to impeach a cabinet member.

I can't remember the exact date, but I think it was like 1880s. Yeah, I was going to say either Civil War or just after the Civil War. Yeah, because, like, this had been, you know, obviously there had been rumbent. And Francis had been like, wait, can they even do that? And everyone was like, no, come on. This never happens. And then it happened. The really infuriating thing was that Francis hadn't done anything wrong.

But rumors were swirling. Rumors that she wasn't who she said she was. What? There was a rumor that a lot of people believed that she was Jewish and that her real name was Matilda Woodsky, and she wasn't born in the United States. Also, there was a less popular rumor that she was secretly married to Harry Bridges, and that's why he hadn't been deported. What the fuck?

Also, she was a communist. Yeah, well, that one makes sense. People wanted to see official documents on Francis. Show us your birth certificate. Are you serious? She's the OG Obama birther thing? Isn't this wild? How much things don't change?

Yeah. Time is a flat circle. It got so bad that finally she sent out a statement detailing all of her genealogy. Here's my family tree. Her actual religion. She was like, I'm not Jewish, but if I was, I wouldn't hide it. I'd be proud. Yeah.

And she just told the truth about herself, mostly. What was some of the lies? It was one lie. for some reason she lied about her age. She shaved two years off of her age. Huh. Which... Just two years?

That's the thing that's... Why just two? Exactly. It's like, why even bother? But it was one of those things. She'd started that lie quite a while earlier. And, man, she was sticking to it. She's got to see, the problem with lies.

You've got to keep track of them. Right. And it's, I mean, she was in this weird position where it's like, okay, if I admit, to this one lie? Are they going to think everything's a lie? But then she didn't admit to the lie. So technically, I guess it didn't all match up with official documents. Oh, Lord. So she couldn't show her birth certificate then. No, but like a county, there's some story about like a county clerk found some records saying that someone who married Paul, you know, it's just there were a bunch of records floating around. Some of them false, some of them real. A lot of it's bullshit.

I would love it if I could just cleanly state it was all bullshit, but part of it was Francis's bullshit because she shaved two years off her life, which is just weird to me. That is strange. That statement didn't really have much of an effect. There was a political machine working against her. Republicans and some Democrats wanted to use this impeachment hearing as a chance to perform a little political theater. Of course, that's, I mean, yeah. I hate it. She asked for a public hearing because she's like,

I didn't do anything wrong. I want this all out in the open. And they were like, no. Yep, they denied it. The day of the hearing, she showed up at the appropriate time, but was told that it had already started. Eventually, she was let in, and she made her statement, answered questions.

Some of these dudes, this is what I hate about the political theater of it all is the fake outrage. Some of them were shaking as they asked her questions because they just couldn't believe how bad she was. I hate it so much. Yeah. Even today, like, I hate watching. Like, YouTube will recommend that shit sometimes to me.

Like, you know, Republican destroys the secretary of the interior. Yeah. Some stupid. Well, it just feels meaningless. Yeah, it's just like drama TV. Yeah. It's like it's for ratings and clicks. And again, it's like the purpose of the government is to operate the country and help people not to have these theatrics, you know.

I disagree. You want theatrics. Benghazi. Her emails. Mm-hmm. We got to get to the bottom of all of it. We're still looking into it, Kristen. Good.

Yeah. We might call Hillary Beckett. for some questions. Honestly, this is kind of what it reminds me of. Well, yeah. What was that guy's name? Trey Dowdy? I can't remember.

I'm going to look it up. Because I remember I was watching an episode of forensic files one time. And that fucker was like the attorney general of the state or something. He was the DA, yeah. He was like, hey, that's the guy that tried to get Hillary Clinton. This is named Trey Dowdy. Trey Gowdy. Oh, okay.

How about Trey get outy of politics? And he did. I don't think he's a congressman anymore. And he drove off in his outy. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Halearious. But no, that's what it reminded me of for sure of like, we just don't like you. We just hate you. And so we're going to bring you in here. And we're going to have some political theater that goes nowhere. And that's where this went nowhere. On March 24th, 1939, the House committee ruled unanimously that they did not have. sufficient evidence to impeach Francis. Yeah, there was just nothing. They had nothing. It was all theater. It's all for show. Okay.

It's funny, though. So in a way, it's a nothing burger, but these things never are. Because the accusations, I feel these, the accusations never fully vanish from people's minds. Yeah, of course. Even if it's a situation like this where there's unanimous agreement, we don't have enough. Yeah. Or even we don't have anything. Mm-hmm.

The accusation is still hanging out. Your reputation has been tarnished. It's like a little grease stain on your perfect shirt. Really hard to get out. You have some experience, Norm? You drop some chili cheese fries on yourself? You know, sometimes I'll grab a shirt out of the closet and I'll put it on and there's just like this big grease stain like right in the middle and it's like, okay, I must have

eaten something and gotten real sloppy with it. Just randomly, like actually this hoodie I'm wearing, I had to do some serious work on it a couple months ago. It had grease stains like all over it. You know what the solution is. Well, I know how to do it. Just a little donned dish soap. No.

What? You eat completely nude. Sloppy Joes are no longer a pump if you're completely nude. Yeah, and then I can just jump in the shower. And then you hose off. Yeah, I can jump in the shower after I eat. Yeah, problem so. That's a good idea, Kristen.

Thank you. I can't go to restaurants anymore, but I don't have grease stains on my clothes. Y'all mind if I take my shirt off? No, ma'am. So, as I was saying, it never fully goes away for people. The accusation kind of lingers like a big, beefy fart. And in the lead-up to this hearing, you know, her critics were saying horrible things about her. That she's this dangerous liar.

She's a danger to the American public. And she really didn't have a ton of people defending her. Yeah. And the people who did defend her kind of did the thing of like, well, you know, hey, hey, she's well-intentioned. You know, she's a well-intentioned lady. And, you know, maybe she, you know, fucked up a little here. So no one had the nuts. No.

That's the thing about being the first. Yeah, it can be lonely. Very lonely up there at the top of the mountain. Especially when your defenders, basically what they're saying is, she's nice but dumb. Yeah. Well-intentioned, man, that's... Backhanded compliment. No, I think it's...

Yeah, to me, well-intention means nice but dumb. She means well, but she just can't get shit done. Yeah. To add insult to injury after the House Committee hearing, where they decide. again that they didn't have enough evidence to impeach her, some of her opponents went to the media and just lied, saying that Francis had been censured. And so that lie stuck around, that she had done something. Yeah, isn't it great that members of our government can just lie and just no consequences? It just sucks that these things stick around. Couldn't Francis, I don't know if this was a thing or what, couldn't she sue? Sue for what? They're saying she was censured. Oh, I see what you mean. But she absolutely was not.

So they know full well she was not, but they're saying it anyway. Isn't that defamatory? I don't think that'd be worth it. I don't think it'd be worth the battle. Because the other thing you've got to think about is like, first of all, that's not really done. But also, okay, you're the first woman in this position. The natural critique of that would be, oh, she can't take any kind of criticism. Oh, she got so emotional.

Oh, she's suing people now. Oh, that, that, that, that, that, that. And then it becomes a big time-waster. Yeah, that's true. This is just me thinking of like, yeah, if real life was like pro wrestling. Yeah, that is what's happening is you want it to be pro wrestling. You want Francis to be oiled up and talking shit. I need Francis to get into a semi-truck and smash into some of these congressmen.

people's cars as they're driving out of the parking lot. That's all we ask for. That's all we ask for them to be piled up nicely in a stack. And here comes Francis. Yeah. Steam rolling, baby. The dream. I think the other thing is like in these situations, you never know, well, in any

situation, you never know what's going to stick. You never know, like, when should I really lash out or is it ever advisable to lash out? And I think, again, it makes it more complicated that she's a woman because she has to be super calm. She has to be so in control. Again, she's the first. Yeah. So, yeah, you're getting scrutinized for everything. I bet they critiqued what she ate for lunch.

A wiener-snitzel. Straight from the wiener-snitzel. Women don't eat chili cheese fries. Oh, my God. I hate that you have mentioned chili cheese fries so much because now I want them. so badly and where do you even get chili cheese fries these days? Sonic. Sonic's not that.

Jack in the box. We're so far from a jack in the box. We're not that far from Jack in the Box. We're too far. Poor Kristen. Oh, don't cry for me, Argentina. I feel like we've asked people to send us chili cheese fries in the mail one time. Send us chili.

I think we said it as a joke one time. I absolutely never would say that. We said it as a joke one time to mail us chili cheese fries. If someone mailed this chili cheese fries, I'd be so freaked out because I would be convinced that someone had mailed a body part, a severed body part. It does make me think, like, you can mail, like, livestock through the postal service, like chicks and stuff? Yeah, that's horrifies me. What else could you mail? And so I want to, could you mail chili cheese fries?

I mean, you could, but should you? That is the question. I think we should try it. No, we, that's you. That's all you. We'll just mail it to like my grandma. She needs meals. We sent you chili cheese fries.

Oh, yeah. I'm sure your grandma's stomach's going to handle that really well. By this point, there had been so much vitriol aimed at Francis than even some friends thought that maybe she'd done something. Yeah, that sucks. It does. That's so frustrating. It does. Like, well, if Congress is saying it, maybe it's right.

Well, yeah. I mean, that's exactly. It was basically that logic of if that many people are saying you're doing something bad, then, you know, you probably did something. It got so bad that in 1940, FDR made the nutless decision to move the immigration and naturalization service out of the labor department, effectively taking it out of Francis's control. Who controlled it? And Department of Justice. Oh. So Francis was still in power, but she was losing power.

Fun fact, FDR is our longest serving president. He was in office from 1933 to 1945. Yes. And Francis Perkins was one of two cabinet members who was with FDR through his entire tenure as president. That's impressive. Yeah. The other side sure was pissed about that long tenure of Mr. FDR, because then they enacted that term limits for the president.

Yeah. Only two terms. I think that's probably for the best. Yeah, I think every government position should have term limits. I think the Supreme Court should have term limits. I think senators should have term limits. I think Congress people should have term limits. Marriages.

Everything should be up for renewal after four years. We vote on our marriage every four years. So far, so good, folks. So far so good, yeah, but things can change. I campaign hard. Mm-hmm. I do my best. Chili cheese fries every Monday.

Yeah. Hopefully I don't get impeached. Francis really wanted to step down before FDR's third term, but he was like, I refuse to accept your resignation. Because she was doing a damn good job, wasn't she? Yeah, and he really trusted her. Yeah. But she struggled a bit.

Public life was really hard. Private life was really hard. and then came the attack on Pearl Harbor. And Francis later noted that when FDR told her and some other high-ranking officials that America had just been attacked, he didn't seem super surprised. There was plenty of intelligence that the Japanese were going to attack.

With America now at war, Francis found herself being pushed out even more. People had been kind of uncomfortable with a woman serving as Secretary of Labor before we went to war. and now it seemed especially wrong. It's so weird. Like, around this time, there was just this thought of like, well, we got to have men on this.

We need a gun to serve as the Secretary of Labor. Put that Browning automatic rifle into office. There was this other element. Francis had always maintained that the way they were able to push the Social Security Act into law was because the Great Depression had shocked Americans into law. to seeing the need for it. But now, thanks to the war, the economy was picking up. War does that. Yeah, people weren't as worried about the social safety nets. And suddenly,

universal health care fell lower and lower and lower on people's priority lists until it just kind of dropped off. In the spring of 1945, in her final meeting with FDR, even though no one was in the room with them, he whispered to her that the war was about to end. And not long after on April 12th, 1945, he died. And his brand new vice president, Harry Truman, became president. Harry Truman. I didn't realize he'd only been vice president for like a couple months when FDR died. I was kind of blown away by that.

You didn't know that? I mean, I'm sure I knew it on some level, but, you know. I was educated. You were, Johnson County. in the preparation for this episode. As soon as he became president, Francis offered her resignation and he accepted. By that point, she was and still is

the United States' longest-serving Secretary of Labor. And she'd accomplished almost everything she'd set out to do in that position. She created the 40-hour workweek, minimum wage, unemployment compensation, workers' comp, and end to child labor, federal aid for unemployment relief, social security. It was an incredible feat. Yeah. The only thing she didn't manage to do was universal health care.

Truth be told, Harry Truman thought that Francis Perkins was a great lady, but that she didn't know anything about politics. So he was fine with her leaving. Sounds like something Harry Truman would say. He appointed a new guy to be the Secretary of Labor. and Francis was kind of like, hmm, you picked him, all right. Not my choice, but whatever. And the guy did a really shitty job.

He developed a reputation as an exceptionally bad secretary of labor. In fact, he was so bad that Harry Truman had to get some other dude who Francis had appointed to step in and help the guy. In fairness, the guy also was a little sick. And it was really... What was his name? Louis Schwellenbach. It's a cool last name. Yeah.

But terrible Secretary of Labor? Yeah, not too good. And it was only then when Francis's job had to be done by two men that people started to be like, oh shit, maybe she was actually really good at her job. Oh, shit, maybe we were really lucky to have her. And turns out Francis maybe ran on a little bit of spite in Crystal Light because she did kind of enjoy hearing all those stories about how much that guy sucked at his job. Mm-hmm.

Speaking of Crystal Light, I had done. move Linda Evans to the bottom shelf. Why? Because you don't believe in Linda Evans like you used to? No, your father complained that he couldn't see the advertisement in the video version because the microphone stand was kind of blocking it. Yeah, he needs a full view of Linda Evans. It should be a lot more viewable now for him.

Well, you know, whatever critique my dad has, we just automatically implement whatever he says. We appreciate your feedback. So Francis was no longer a member of a presidential cabinet. And so she was just kind of laughing at how badly the new guy was performing and also writing a biography of FDR titled The Roosevelt I New. And later, Harry Truman appointed her to the United States Civil Service Commission. She served on it until 1953. Fun fact. She actually worked illegally for those last few years because according to the law, people in those positions were supposed to,

to retire when they turned 70, but, you know, she'd started lying about her age like a long time earlier. She wasn't going to all of a sudden be honest now. About a year before she left the Civil Service Commission, her husband Paul passed away. And, you know, his death was really complicated for her. She'd been taken care of him all those years. Yeah. In many ways, may have been a relief.

Yeah. I mean, that's definitely what can be complicated is it could be a relief, and then you'd feel terrible about that. Right. But also, it's sad too. You know, I think there was some affection there, but it wasn't a true partnership. Right. After that, she wanted to go into academia, but academia wasn't too interested in her.

I thought you were going to say she wanted to go into acting. Oh, my God. Can you imagine? What? Okay, academia. Yeah. At that point, she was seen as kind of too radical. So...

Too woke? Yeah. She took a position as a visiting lecturer at Cornell University. No one would give her like a full-time professorship. She was a visiting lecturer at Cornell. Uh-huh. And, okay, this sounds terrible. She lived on campus.

She lived on campus at Tell You Ride House, which it's still around. It's a house for, you know, very wonderful students, I guess. Uh-huh. And until this point, it had been just all dudes all the time. and Francis Perkins became the first woman to ever live at that house. And she was in her 70s with a bunch of young dudes. Hell yeah. She did keg stands with them.

Frances, Francis. No, she seemed to really enjoy that time in her life. But also, you know, she struggled, too, in her final years because she had these sad feelings about not being important. anymore. And then she would feel bad about like, oh, that's my pride. That's my ego. Like it sucks that I'm even worried about about that anymore. She was very, very hard on herself. She worried that she hadn't done enough. By that point, she and Susanna had become estranged, which I don't know if I would truly call it estranged because Francis had given Susanna and her family the apartment on Madison

Avenue. She continued to support them financially, but the relationship wasn't there. And then on May 14th, 1965, when she was 85 years old, Francis Perkins had a stroke and died. 85. Yeah. She's buried next to her husband Paul in Newcastle, Maine. And that is the story of a woman whose name we all ought to know. Fannie Perkins. It's just wild to me how much she accomplished. And it's funny going into this, I'd heard about her before, just briefly. But I didn't know the impeachment stuff. And it just, it just sucks.

Well, and all the things she came up with are like certain politicians want to get rid of Social Security. It's incredible that she was able to get that done. And it's still around today. And just like the Affordable Care Act, Social Security is too popular. Yeah. It will never go away. Yeah. It's too damn popular.

Excellent episode. Yeah, her work shaped all of our lives. Yeah, 40-hour work week. Absolutely. Which, man, I really need to follow that more. When you work for yourself, you should institute the 40-hour work week. You need to go Francis Perkins on your own ass. Although, I guess going Francis Perkins might mean that you would work even more.

I honestly, like her feelings of have I done enough? Have I peaked? Like, is this it? Yeah. I'm not making an impact anymore. Man, I feel that. I feel those feelings sometimes. Yeah, absolutely.

Am I doing enough is something I feel a lot. Well, and I think especially for her, you know, she had this very public career where she was always being told, you're not doing enough. She was badass, though. Like, the first female presidential cabinet member, and she was a fun. fucking really good one. Yeah. She didn't just exist in that job. Yeah.

She got a lot accomplished. All right. Should we wrap up? Let's wrap it up. Oh, actually. What? I have a little fun thing. Are you going to read reviews?

That was fun. No, it's not reviews. I want to read comments from social media because, folks, if you don't know, if you're not following us on Instagram. You're missing out. We are posting some really goofy-ass picks. Our latest post in honor of Norm's coverage of the disastrous 1904 Olympics, we decided to create our own new Olympic sport, synchronized hot tubbing. Yes. And the picks are pretty glorious. I think you'll find us quite athletic looking in that hot tub. Yes, I do look like a box, but a wet box.

So I collected three of my favorite comments from social media, and I'd like to read them now. Okay, let's hear it. Dark Star Within wrote, Norm should know better than to post obvious thirst traps like that. I have a family. I've corrupted his whole life. That's right. He's questioning everything now.

Katie Matakis says, Norm needs to point in. his toes. That's a deduction for sure. I love that. Yeah, in one of the photos, everyone, we have a leg in the air. I pointed my toes because I'm going for the gold. I didn't know you had to point your toes. What? I just thought you showed them little piggies. No, no. If you want to be part of synchronized hot tubbing and if you want a metal cert, you're going to have to point them toes. Noted. Katia Null wrote on Facebook, I was zooming in trying to get a closer look at Normie's badass sleeve tattoos

when my husband walked by and asked why I was checking out someone's boobs. I told him they were both fine works of art. Oh, they were zoomed in on your boobs because you were right next to me. And now Katia is lying and saying she was trying to look at your tattoos when clearly no one was looking at the tattoos. She wanted to see those big pleasant hooters. Who could blame her? Who could blame her?

Yeah. All right, and now we can wrap it up. Excellent. Kristen, you know what they say about history, hoes. We always cite our sources. That's right. For this episode, I got my information from the documentary summoned Francis Perkins and the General Welfare,

the book, The Woman Behind the New Deal by Kirsten Downey, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website, and the Francis Perkins Center. That's all for this episode. Thank you for listening to an old-timey podcast. Please give us a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. And while you're at it, subscribe. Support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash old-timey podcast.

Follow us on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok at Old Timey Podcast. Join the Reddit community, our slash old-timey podcast, and follow us individually on Instagram at Kristen Pitts-Keruso and Gaming Historian. And until next time, Tudaloo, Tata, and Cheerio! Bye!