President Joe Biden on Monday established a nationwide monument honoring the late FDR-era Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, the primary lady to serve in a presidential Cupboard and a driving drive behind Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal packages after the Nice Melancholy.
Perkins is “one of America’s greatest labor leaders, and that’s not hyperbole,” Biden stated. Perkins “cemented the idea” that “if you’re working a full-time job, you shouldn’t have to live in poverty,” Biden stated.
The outgoing Democratic president signed the proclamation establishing the monument in Newcastle, Maine, after a speech on the Division of Labor as he seeks to burnish his legacy as a champion of ladies’s and labor rights with simply over 5 weeks left in his time period.
The division’s constructing is called after Perkins, who helped President Roosevelt formulate insurance policies behind the Thirties New Deal agenda and create safeguards within the nationwide financial system following the Nice Melancholy that started in 1929. Perkins was the longest-serving labor secretary in U.S. historical past and is credited with serving to set up the Social Safety Act, the Truthful Labor Requirements Act and the Nationwide Labor Relations Act, establishing employees’ rights to prepare and cut price collectively.
“Frances Perkins accepted the position as the first female Cabinet member only after President Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to support her goals to improve working conditions for all people,” Inside Secretary Deb Haaland stated in a press release. “She worked tirelessly to see them to fruition, and she set a standard of excellence that is a beacon for all of us who serve.”
Perkins and her household had deep roots in Newcastle, the place she was buried after her demise in 1965. The monument can be established on her household homestead and managed by the Nationwide Park Service, an arm of the Inside Division.
Julie Su, who has been serving as appearing Labor secretary, introduced Biden’s induction into the division’s Corridor of Honor. Biden, who has stated he’s essentially the most pro-union individual to function president, stated it was an “incredible honor.”
Final yr, Biden turned the first sitting president to stroll a picket line when he joined putting United Auto Staff’ members in Michigan.
Haaland on Monday additionally introduced 5 new nationwide historic landmarks recognizing girls’s contributions to American historical past: the Charleston Cigar Manufacturing unit in Charleston, South Carolina; the Furies Collective, and Lucy Diggs Slowe and Mary Burrill Home, each in Washington; Azurest South in Petersburg, Virginia; and the Peter Hurd and Henriette Wyeth Home and Studios in San Patricio, New Mexico.
