Frances “Fanny” Perkins did not step into the halls of power in 1933 to decorate a Cabinet photo. She stepped in carrying fire.
That’s precisely why Fanny is not just a hero for the labor movement, but a personal hero of mine and an inspiration to every girl and woman who refuses to abide by the limits society imposes on them.
The first woman to serve in a U.S. Cabinet brought not just a resume but a moral compass: the conviction that workers’ lives should not be ground down for profit. She turned catastrophe, the Great Depression, into opportunity: Social Security, a federal minimum wage, overtime pay, a ban on child labor, safety standards that meant people could leave work alive.
If Labor Day is a mirror, this year it reflects Perkins’ unfinished fight. The climate crisis is the new Great Depression of labor, testing whether our legal scaffolding can carry the weight of 120-degree heat waves, megastorms, and wildfire smoke choking job sites. And feminism is still the fault line—becau…
