Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Dear Miss Perkins with Rebecca Brenner Graham

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

She was the first female cabinet secretary, but secretly, out of the spotlight, Frances Perkins also saved countless lives during World War II. Author Rebecca Brenner Graham shares incredible stories from her new book, Dear Miss Perkins, which showcases the letters of people who wrote to Perkins, desperate for her help to escape Nazi Germany. As the longest-serving Labor Secretary, Perkins stared down personal attacks and fierce opposition to do what she knew was right: making quick decisions that would protect those at a time when many turned their backs. Credits: Host and Executive Producer: Sharon McMahon Supervising Producer: Melanie Buck Parks Audio Producer: Craig Thompson To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This winter, take a trip to Tampa on Porter Airlines. Enjoy the warm Tampa Bay temperatures and warm Porter hospitality on your way there. All Porter Fairs include beer, wine and snacks and free fast-streaming Wi-Fi on planes with no middle seats. And your Tampa Bay vacation includes good times, relaxation and great Gulf Coast weather. Visit flyporter.com and actually enjoy economy. Hello, friends. Welcome. Delighted to have you with me. My guest is Rebecca Brenner-Graham, who has written a delightful book called Dear Miss Perkins. And it is a story of Frances Perkins, an American you absolutely should know,

and some of her important efforts that she undertook during World War II. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Rebecca, thank you so much for being here. I have been anxiously anticipating this book, so I'm so happy that we were able to make time to do this today. Thank you so much for having me. And as a longtime listener, I'm extra excited to be

here. First of all, I need to tell the listeners why I was excited about it. And then I want to ask you some questions about this book. Francis Perkins is such an interesting historic figure that most Americans know nothing about. Has that been your experience that people are like, Francis Perkins who? I loved sitting near the Francis Perkins portrait in the National Portrait Gallery in downtown Washington DC while I was writing and listening to what people said about her. One of my favorite examples actually made it into the first page of the last full chapter because I was just sitting there and

this person says, I know who she is. Isn't she the handkerchief lady? Yes. Triangle shirt waist fire. See, I know my stuff. And that was an informed person. That was a person who felt like they were informed, at least. It was a stranger that I was listening to their conversation, but there was a lot going on in that short quip. And I love asking people, when was the first time you heard of her? A common answer is watching the movie Dirty Dancing because the character Baby is named after Frances Perkins.

Yeah, I didn't know that. I would not have made that connection. Tell me a little bit more about, before we get into Frances Perkins, who she was and what she did, what about this topic beckoned you? Because honestly, like you could have written about anything, right? What about this topic where you're like, but I need to devote years of my life to writing a book about this woman. My entry point to Frances Perkins was over a decade ago when I was a senior at Mount Holyoke College. She went there, she was class of 1902 and she was actually class president.

That was how I first heard who she was when I was in college. I did an internship for author Kirsten Downey who wrote The Woman Behind the New Deal. And then this topic, which has been thoroughly rewritten a decade later, was my undergraduate thesis topic. And then after I finished graduate school, I was walking through Barnes and Noble and was flipping through the footnotes of a random book. And I was looking for a side character in the Perkins story. And I realized while flipping through the endnotes in Barnes and Noble, that was kind

of a weird thing to do unless you still cared a ton about the topic. And that was when it just hit me that I cared about the topic so much that I wanted, like you said, to channel the next few years into it. I would love for you to talk to us a little bit more about like who Frances Perkins even was. Give us like a little brief biography about like, who even is this woman and why should we care? Frances Perkins was born in Boston in 1880.

She was raised in Worcester. She went to Mount Holyoke after graduation. She was actually a high school teacher full time, like you, like I used to be. And she started volunteering on the side at Whole House, Jane Adams' settlement home. And that launched her career in social and economic activism, working with people in need at Whole House. She wanted to do it full time.

She ended up getting a full time job with the New York Consumers League as its executive secretary. And that was part of broader women's social economic reform movements, the New York Consumers League. And while she was in that job, she was a couple blocks away from the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. It was really serious and sad and a workplace safety disaster. And after that, she was appointed to the New York State Factory Investigating Commission, which was a new commission that formed after

the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, she would travel around the state of New York investigating how workplace safety was going and working on fire safety in particular. And then in 1919, when a Democrat governor, Al Smith became governor of New York, he appointed her to the Industrial Commission for the state of New York. That was a big deal. She was often the only woman in the room. She was a member of the state level cabinet. So when Franklin D. Roosevelt assembled his cabinet

when he became president, he was really just bringing over his secretary of labor from the state of New York, even though it wasn't called that there, and made her the US secretary of labor, which was a big deal because it was the first time a woman had been a cabinet secretary. I mean, it was a big deal, right?

Like women were still viewed as like, you could be a nurse or a teacher or a stay-at-home mom. Those were kind of the prescribed set of acceptable professions for women. And to see a woman elevated to cabinet secretary was something that Americans had no experience with. FDR had a few different women in his orbit that had different roles.

And some of the times the women allegedly did not get along with each other. I wonder, or I have wondered, how much of that is a desire to recast women's history as like, oh, but the women didn't get along. We can't have a whole bunch of women working together. The women didn't get along when FDR had multiple women in his immediate circle. I'm thinking specifically about Frances Perkins and Anna Marie Rosenberg. Are you familiar with her? Yes, I read the Confidant. It's actually from the same imprint as my book.

Yeah. Again, allegedly, I don't know if this is true or not, there wasn't a lot of love lost between Rosenberg and Perkins. I've heard the same thing about Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt. And here's what I think. People often don't get along. That's people. It's not especially women. Anyone who's had a job knows that people sometimes don't get along. Yeah, you bring up a really good point that people don't get along. But because these were the only women in that viewpoint, you know, like these are the women who are around FDR. It's the first time women have been given the opportunity to be cabinet secretary, blah, blah, blah, because they were the only women.

If they don't get along, well, it seems easy to draw the conclusion that like, well, 100% of the women in FDR's orbit did not get along with each other. When in reality, there were plenty of men who didn't get along either. It's just that there were a lot more of them. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes didn't get along with anyone his whole life. It's a reoccurring story as well. I mean, Winston Churchill basically got along with like four people. But you make a great point that just humans in general tend to disagree with one another about things. And that continues to be true. Frances Perkins got along exceptionally well with many people, including her long-term

roommate Mary Harriman Rumsey until she tragically died in a carriage accident in I think 1934. And she also got along with many men. She worked well with President Roosevelt. She worked exceptionally well with her Commissioner of Immigration, Daniel McCormick. I think one thing about Frances Perkins socially that's almost frustrating while researching her is that she kept a very small private circle. So she's not someone who is going out of her way to share her innermost feelings with future historians. She kept her cards very close to her chest. And she could be moralistic. No one's perfect. She could be a little bit judgmental. One line that stands out to me is after she was Secretary of Labor, she told

a friend who was going through a breakup to wash her face every day and go to church every Sunday and you'll be fine. It's very much like pull yourself up by your bootstraps, wash your face, get to church, stop wallowing in self-pity. Sounds like that was her mentality. Today we would be like, well, that's not very supportive. That's not the support she needs right now. But again, she was playing in a man's world. And that is what the advice many men would have given each other It's fascinating that you mentioned the pull yourself up by the bootstraps because we've debunked that in terms of the economy But she is someone who brought a strong

individual work ethic to huge collective and structural problems work ethic to huge collective and structural problems. So she is someone who personally expected of herself to pull herself up by her bootstraps, except when she was not working on immigration policy, I mean, all the policy issues are connected, but she was a key architect of the New Deal, which brought public federal support behind societal and economic issues. So she was not

an individualist, but she had a strong sense of individual responsibility that she brought to everything she did in government. Yeah, you're exactly right. It's a strong juxtaposition between the advice she gave to a friend of like, wash your face and go to church. And what she viewed was the role of government in society as one of the primary architects of the New Deal, which is the opposite of pull yourself up by your bootstraps because if people could have bootstrapped their way out of the Great Depression, they would have, and they obviously could not. Herbert Hoover tried that.

Yes. And that's why Hoover got voted out quite quickly. This is another aside. I do find Hoover's sort of 1950s era redemption of himself as sort of the great humanitarian. Hoover is the ultimate bootstrapper because he is a self-made man, right? Like he views himself as like you can get rich and become a famous geologist and you invest in a bunch of gold mines. You too can be a wealthy man. And he resisted any calls for government interference in the economy during the Great Depression. But then during the 1950s, he goes on to work with Harry Truman and creates the World Food Program. Like Herbert Hoover has saved more lives worldwide than any single United States president. And yet his attitude

towards the Great Depression was figured out. It's not my problem to deal with. Perhaps he had more personal compassion than that, but he really did not want the government to be involved in the economy in that way. It's just interesting how people sometimes have these weird, we might tend to call them a lack of principle, but in reality all humans are far more complex than that, right? Like sometimes we take one viewpoint personally and another viewpoint societally and it sounds like Francis Perkins was one of those people. I know so many people who have found it incredibly helpful to speak to a qualified professional therapist. Telehealth has made mental health care way more convenient and accessible for millions

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Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Go to rula.com slash interesting and take the first step towards better mental health today. You deserve quality care from someone who cares. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. serve quality care from someone who cares. Hey, I'm Ben Stiller. I'm Adam Scott. And we make a TV show called Severance. On January 17th, Severance is back for season two

on Apple TV Plus, and we can't wait for you guys to see it. And before the premiere, Ben and I are gonna be binging season one and putting out daily recap podcasts. Yep, each weekday beginning January 7th, we'll be dropping an episode featuring exclusive behind the scenes tidbits and brilliant insights from our cast and crew and us. Patricia Arquette, Britt Lauer, Zach Cherry, John Totoro.

The list goes on. All your favorite Lumen employees, their friends, families, enemies in your feed every single weekday. And here's the best part. After that, we're going to keep going. Dear Miss Perkins, is not primarily about the get your podcasts. Dear Ms. Perkins, it's not primarily about the New Deal. It's not primarily about all of the labor reforms that we still have many of them in place today that we can attribute directly to Francis Perkins' influence and rulemaking,

the fact that we don't have child labor We have Francis Perkins by and large to thank for many of those reforms. There's a lot of very interesting Impacts that we are still feeling today that were spearheaded by Francis Perkins She is absolutely an American who changed the course of history, but the thrust of your book has more to do with her refugee policy, her assistance to refugees during World War II. And this is an especially poignant topic today as the United States is undergoing a big shift on how it views refugees, how it views asylum seekers, how it views immigrants to the United States. So set the stage for us. What is the flavor of immigration rhetoric when Francis Perkins comes on the scene? What

is the mood in the United States like at that time? Thank you for that question. My book is a story of Francis Perkins' efforts to aid refugees from Nazi Germany. Three stories converge. There's Frances Perkins, but I did not write a comprehensive biography. And it's also a story of American responses to the Holocaust, though it's definitely not the whole story. And my book only takes place in the 1930s. So first we get Frances Perkins becoming Secretary of Labor.

And that was already historic for many reasons, including that she was not a rank and file labor union organizer leader, like many previous secretaries of labor at that point. And that alone meant that unlike the traditional white male labor movement, she was not anti-immigrant. The labor unions supported the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. That was actually before there was a Department of Labor,

but still the same throughout of history. And one of the first problems she faced when she went to the Department of Labor was that bureaucratically, immigration was all over the place. Five different men informed her that they were in charge of immigration. And she's like, well, I think I'm the Secretary of Labor.

But she was actually like, OK, we have an organization of personnel issue on immigration specifically. And some listeners might be wondering, well, what does the Department of Labor have to do with immigration? Today, it's in the Department of Homeland Security. The Immigration Bureau was in the Department of Treasury

in the 1800s. And then in the early 1900s, it became part of the Department of Labor and Commerce. And then those split into two in 1913. So that's how the Immigration Bureau ended up in the Department of Labor. And it was because people viewed immigration as a labor competition issue. So the fact that it was there in the first place actually wasn't great for immigrants. I argue in some of my chapters that American immigration law holistically has been pretty xenophobic in character. So when

Frances Perkins became Secretary of Labor, the immigration and naturalization bureaus were separate because the thinking was those are two different things. People who immigrate here are not going to naturalize and become citizens, but she wanted to streamline it for efficiency and what she and her commissioner of immigration, Daniel McCormick, they called it compassion and they called it humanity. So those were the priorities that she brought to the Department of Labor's handling of immigration. I mean, like, what a mess. Talk about trying to create structure out of chaos. The idea that five men were like, well,

I'm in charge of immigration. And she's like, actually, pretty sure I'm in charge of immigration, so back it up. I'm sure all five of those men were like, oh, OK, whatever you say, Miss Parkins. I'm sure that was the response. It connects to your earlier point about people not getting along, because what

happens when the five individual men in charge of immigration are all trying to work together? Sounds like a recipe for disaster. And in all seriousness, it was a disaster for the people being deported, which was what they were spending their time and energy doing. I think when Frances Perkins hears bad press, she would think of the resolution to impeach her in US Congress in 1939 for quote, treason. There was a resolution to impeach her on the grounds of treason. She was not impeached or convicted because she did not commit treason and there was no evidence, but she received significant resistance and

bad press throughout her tenure. Why? Is it just because she's a girl? I mean, that's too simplistic, obviously. Most people would never go to the newspaper and be like, well, I just don't like women in positions of power. They're not going to say that necessarily. Some people might. But what was she accused of? She was accused of treason because she did not deport a man named Harry Bridges, who was an Australian immigrant and a communist labor organizer who led the successful longshore strike on the Pacific coast in 1934.

No one really paid attention to it until 1935, when key New Deal legislation, the Wagner Act, legalized strikes and unions. And then the anti-New Dealers started getting upset. That's my real answer to your question, that the New Deal was actually radical. It was not perfect. It left out Black Americans.

It left out a lot of women. It was a radical restructuring of the government's role in the economy and society. And that angered capitalists, and it angered small-c conservatives. And the way I view the misogyny aspect is that it was always there. It was always an added layer

that Frances Perkins had to navigate, but what it ultimately was one of many tools that the anti-New Dealers could use against her. So the letters that she received and kept and remain in her papers at Columbia called her all kinds of misogynistic slurs, like the worst things you can think of. There was a conspiracy theory in 1939 accusing her of

being Jewish, which she was not. She was a practicing Episcopalian. And it was not only because of her efforts on behalf of Jewish refugees, it was also because American society didn't like Jewish people and it would be convenient for them if they could call her something else that they did not like. So they concocted a conspiracy theory. Frances Perkins's husband was named Paul Wilson. So these geniuses found a different Paul Wilson who had married a Jewish immigrant and they said, well, she must be secretly a Jewish immigrant. Yeah, well, there are still anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to this day about FDR. People like to say that FDR was Jewish as part of their effort to villainize him.

That's still like part of the whole QAnon conspiracy theory ecosystem and beyond. That's not new to QAnon, but it's been adopted by some of them. Yes. adopted by some of them. Yes, so both the misogyny and the conspiratorial anti-Semitism were tools in the anti-New Dealers toolboxes and they accused her of treason. A couple, congressmen in particular, Thomas and Diaz, they were both in the US House of Representatives and the irony is that it was over an Australian communist immigrant, not over a German Jewish refugee, but it had such an effect on Frances Perkins as political capital that she had many ideas that would have been good, or at least help refugees.

And she had been expressing those from 1933 through the escalation of the Nazi rise to power and also the start of World War II in 1939. She had been sharing all these ideas but by the time they were being considered on Capitol Hill she was actually not one of the people testifying. She had to strategically stay behind the scenes because of all the bad press during the resolution to impeach her for treason, and once again, not a traitor, actually quite patriotic. Why is this book called Dear Miss Perkins?

When it was my undergraduate thesis for most of the year, and this is really bad, but for most of the year it was called The Efforts of Francis Perkins to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany. A little less perky on a book cover. Yeah, it's not good. And like some of that wording ended up in the subtitle, but my undergraduate thesis had a deadline, right? Like the end of the school year. And I almost did not meet the deadline for a variety of reasons. And I remember having a particularly difficult conversation

with my wonderful thesis advisor, Jeremy King at Mount Holyoke. And in my walk back to my dorm, there were tears and there was also the idea to call it Dear Miss Perkins. And the heart of the book is Dear Miss Perkins. In the book, there is a chapter that shares its name with the title and it's about the people who wrote to her. She receives letters from people and she responds to as many as she can, and she tries to point them in the right direction navigating a very complex immigration system. Sometimes it's the refugees, more

often it's people that she knows who happen to know and sometimes care about a refugee who's maybe in their family. So one example from the Dear Miss Perkins letters, which are in the National Archives, is her dentist, Eugene Wiseman, had a cousin who was a Hungarian Jewish man married to an Austrian Jewish woman, and they were trying to immigrate to the US. That physically close proximity of her dentist writing to her on behalf of a family member who was in danger. And the cousin, Andre Verity, was literally deported to a concentration camp on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, in November 1938. And that was one

of the examples of someone who she could not help to immigrate to the US. But there were also many examples of people who wrote Dear Miss Perkins and it was the start of a correspondence that saved multiple people's lives. How did they know to write to her? Like what is the process of like, you know who I should write a letter to is that one government official and if I write to her, I know that she'll get the letter. How would people have even known that? Three reasons. Sometimes they were quite educated, like upper echelon of Washington or New York society, and they knew that the immigration naturalization service was in her Department of Labor. And they knew her. It was often people who knew her from each stage of her

life. So that was one way. Another way is that because of all the bad press about immigration, they thought of her as the pro-immigration cabinet member. And third and closely related, even before the bad press started and escalated in the mid to late 1930s, she was the strongest advocate for immigrants in the first Roosevelt administration. So at the first few cabinet meetings in spring of 1933, she was the foremost advocate for German Jewish refugees

at that table. And she also had relationships with people. Like she was friends with Felix Frankfurter, who was not on the Supreme Court yet. He would be in a few years, but he was brainstorming ways to help the refugees. What exactly does Frances Perkins do when she begins getting these letters? What is it that she's like, I need to take action on these? What is it that she actually does

with all of this correspondence? Sometimes it was sending a note to the Department of State. Sometimes she would send a note to somebody who worked for the INS, possibly at Ellis Island or elsewhere in the US, and put in a word for someone. And sometimes she actually explained to the person writing to her clearly and carefully how to navigate the system. In some of these examples from the Dear Miss Perkins letters, they likely could have found a path to immigration without Frances Perkins, and so the word saves might be too strong there, but she provided clarity and

comfort. But there were other examples of people who relied on her intervention in order to reach safety. And one of them was a businessman in Austria and he was Jewish and he had a physical disability that he was born with. And on his journey from Austria to the US, first, they wouldn't let him board the ship. He was told that he couldn't board the ship because the Immigration Act of 1917 said that people with disabilities could not immigrate to the US. And the same act also said that the secretary of labor can accept funds on their behalf to ensure that they won't become a burden on the economy because that was the reasoning behind the ableism.

And that was the first time that she intervened. She had to send a note to the ship in Austria. And then the second time was when he reached Ellis Island, her own employees with the INS at Ellis Island tried to say you can't possibly be allowed to immigrate because of this physical disability and then she had to again tell them that he supported himself in Austria and also that somebody at Holhaus who was a humanitarian activist was supporting him financially.

So in order for this poor Jewish Austrian man to come to the US, he needed to have evidence of supporting himself, somebody to support him in case for the first time he couldn't, and the Secretary of Labor to directly intervene twice. That's fascinating. So she's clearly inserting herself in these specific cases. You know, I would imagine she's being like overtly criticized by people who oppose her saying,

you're not allowed to use your power to sort of like move the levers for individual people. You know, like what were the criticisms today? The idea that somebody would be like, dear Tony, I really want to come to the United States. Please help me, how do I do that? And then they would get a personal letter back from like the secretary of state.

Like that seems preposterous today. And in fact, we would probably accuse that person of like corruption if they were personally helping people to navigate the US immigration system. So what were people saying about her efforts? She did not draw attention to herself and she went out of her way not to draw attention to herself. The first time there was a ship of German Jewish children refugees that she had personally worked with Cecilia Rosowski to get them into the US. The team that worked

together went out of their way to ensure that there was no media coverage. By the time she was receiving the dear Miss Perkins letters, one thing that I think is so brave about them is that she had all this bad press for not deporting Harry Bridges and there were some socialists that she helps explain the immigration law to. This is so interesting. I could just be like, well, what about this? And what about this? Like all of this fascinates me.

Like I said, I love her as a historic figure because she, in many ways, as you rightly point out, she has always been a bit of an enigma She's trying to like fly a little bit below the radar because it's easier to get things done If not, everybody is watching you right like that was an easier way to navigate the system and you even say in your book Consuming the books and media that are now available about Perkins, she stands out for her righteousness. Yet she was not a superwoman saving people left and right. She was a professional whose innovative policies and solutions shaped real people's daily lives. Her ideas pushed against the limits and tested the boundaries of the society where they took place.

When they wrote, Dear Ms. Perkins, Family and friends of refugees overseas did not know what would happen or if she would be able to solve their problems. They had good reason to believe had good reason to believe that she would try. What a lovely tribute to a woman who never tried to gain attention for herself. What a lovely tribute to a woman whose work was predominantly focused on the betterment of others. Right? Like you don't become the secretary of labor because you're gonna get some brand deal with Nike afterwards, right? Like it doesn't make you rich and famous to advocate for refugees. It doesn't make you rich and famous to advocate for child labor laws. It doesn't make you rich and famous to help create programs that save people from homelessness. But I love the idea that what

she stands out for is her righteousness. What does that mean to you as somebody who spent years studying her? What does it mean to stand out for your righteousness in this context? That she often made decisions based on, is it the right thing to do? And sometimes she was criticized for not being politically savvy. I think she was politically savvy. I think that she would have run into a lot more serious trouble a lot sooner if she wasn't. And of course, just being a woman in a male space is political.

But she made decisions because they were the right thing to do. And in her testimony at the impeachment hearing for the resolution to impeach her in 1939, first she combed through the laws to defend herself. But then, I will quote myself a little bit here, that Perkins stated, ours a little nearer our conception to the city of God. So she was a moralist and she did things because she believed it was right. But then I write, here was Perkins at her best and worst, the worst signaling to her beliefs for authority in a way that only Christians

can do in America, apparently unaware of the pitfalls of systemic Christian nationalism, the best pleading to help people for no more complicated reason than it's the right thing to do. And that's my answer to your question, is that she comes across as righteous because she is a super smart woman. She understood a wide range of political calculus,

but her point of decision-making was, did she think it was right? We could keep talking about this forever, but I really want people to read Dear Miss Perkins so they can learn even more about a really pivotal woman, especially in not just women's history, but in 20th century American history. I always think of that as bookstores in a Barnes and Noble.

So I think she should be on the US history shelf and there should also be a woman's history shelf and she should be on both. What is it that you hope that the reader knows when they close the last page? What do you hope they take with them and sort of tuck into their pocket about her. I want readers to know how hard Frances Perkins tried on behalf of people in need and also to understand the extent of the obstacles that were in her path. Because if we only focused on what an icon she was, that would be rose colored glasses. But if we only focused on the obstacles in her path, then that might make people give up.

And I've been thinking a lot about individual action versus collective action, and there's a lot of that in this story. It's not like she was fighting with one person individually. One of the largest roadblocks in her way was truly the institution of US Congress, which the American people had elected a congressman who wanted to minimize immigration to the US and to restrict it and those laws were in her way yet. She implemented them creatively and the people that she built networks with, networks collective, were also sometimes individuals like Jane Addams started Whole House and that was an institution she continued communicating

with. Cecilia Rzoszki started the German Jewish Children's Aid. There are so many examples of individual action and collective action here, but also collective and structural roadblocks. This has been a real treat. Thank you so much, Rebecca. I just really enjoyed learning more about Frances Perkins. I love her as a historic American figure and as a figure in women's history. Both of those things at the same time. Thank you for being here. Thank you so much for having me. You can buy Dear Miss Perkins by Rebecca Brenner Graham, wherever you get your books.

If you want to support independent bookshops, head to yours or go to bookshop.org. I'll see you again soon. Thank you so much for listening to Here's Where It Gets Interesting. If you enjoyed today's episode, would you consider sharing or subscribing to this show? That helps podcasters out so much. I'm your host and executive producer, Sharon McMahon. Our supervising producer is Melanie Buck Park.