A Woman Unafraid: Francis Perkins authographed by Penny Colman

Penny Colman writes another of her award-winning biographies about Women Who Changed America. Frances Perkins, the first woman to be Secretary of Labor, was a woman who successfully dared to demand that our politics advance the common good and that it be rooted in morality and not in self-interest. Paper, 125 pages.

Frances Perkins (1880–1965)
Government Leader
Secretary of Labor from 1933 through 1945, Frances Perkins was the first woman to hold a cabinet-level position. After witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in 1911, where 146 women workers lost their lives, she worked for safety legislation for industrial workers in New York State. As Secretary of Labor, Perkins secured legislation to provide unemployment relief, public works, Social Security, minimum wage and maximum hours and prohibition of child labor.