Frances Perkins

Frances Perkins was once US Secretary of Labor. Her appointment on March 4, 1933, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt made Perkins the first female cabinet member in U.S. history.

ALP

Communist Party USA member Bea Lumpkin had the pleasure of meeting Frances Perkins in 1938. Perkins was the featured speaker at a meeting of the American Labor Party on the West Side of New York. "The meeting was in a school classroom and I sat in the front seat of the middle row. Perkins set me on fire. I was 19 at the time. I think she noticed me, too, because in her next newsletter, she wrote about 'the intense young woman who sat up front at the meeting.'"