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Vol. 2, No. 9
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September 2015
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Frances Perkins, the New Deal, and Social Security
Frances Perkins was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945. She was the first woman ever to be appointed to the U.S. Cabinet where she served under President Franklin Roosevelt. She helped develop many of the new ideas of the New Deal: the creation of child labor laws, unemployment insurance, the first minimum wage, overtime laws and the definition of the standard forty-hour work week.
As chairwoman of the President's Committee on Economic Security, Secretary of Labor Perkins led the Committee on Economic Security in drafting the bill that would become the Social Security Act of 1935. [See WWHP August newsletter on the 80th anniversary of Social Security.] In a speech on Social Security that she gave in September, 1935, she said, "During the fifteen years I have been advocating such legislation as this I have learned that the American people want such security as the law provides. It will make this great Republic a better and a happier place in which to live -- for us, our children and our children's children."
Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on April 10, 1880. She graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry and physics. She later earned a master's degree in political science from Columbia University. She had a variety of teaching positions including a teaching position at Ferry Hall School (now Lake Forest Academy) in Lake Forest, Illinois. In Chicago, she volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House.
In 1910 Perkins began striving on behalf of workers as the head of the New York Consumers League. She saw first-hand the deadly working conditions in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Fire which killed more than 100 factory employees. This incident inspired Perkins to lobby harder on behalf of the workforce.
Later, as industrial commissioner of New York State, Frances Perkins was in a position to help improve work regulations and related social programs. In 1929, she was selected as the state's labor commissioner by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Frances Perkins truly was a trailblazer for women. She is noted for saying that "I had a kind of duty to other women to walk in and sit down on the chair that was offered, and so establish the right of others long hence and far distant in geography to sit in the high seats."
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Child Care in Chicago Holds First Public Meeting
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June Aimen, Dr.Shirlen Triplett, Betty Harris,
Mike Ruggeri
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It was appropriate that the Committee on Child Care in Chicago held its first public event on Friday, September 25th, at a Friends of Harold Washington meeting, invited by Michael Ruggeri, the new president of the Friends group. Why appropriate? Because the Child Care in Chicago project originated during a May 2013 Friends of Harold Washington trip to visit Cahokia Mounds near East St. Louis.
Serendipity brought Arleen Prairie and Jackie Kirley to ride in the same car to St. Louis and serendipity introduced the topic of child care into their discussion. By ride's end, Jackie was convinced that Arleen would be a good speaker at WWHP's forthcoming January 2014 program, "Childcare in Chicago: A Working Woman's Issue." That began their collaboration. From there the committee grew, took on the work of videotaping child care practitioners and parents of young children, and formed a partnership with the Civic Practice Lab of Lookingglass Theatre. It is now a 7-member committee that works as an ensemble. In addition to Arleen and Jackie, the committee is composed of of Myra Cox, Cheryl Dias, Betty Harris, Marsha Katz, and Amy Laiken.
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Myra Cox, Jackie Kirley, Arleen Prairie, Amy Laiken, Cheryl Dias, Patricia Payne, Betty Harris
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At the Friends' meeting, the committee showed
Child Care: Voices from Parents and Practitioners, excerpts from their videotaped interviews. Patricia Payne, a social worker who had been interviewed by the committee, spoke of her experiences working with parents and children in several settings. Afterwards, audience members discussed the current situation of child care in Illinois and suggested avenues for the committee to pursue its goals.
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Brigid Duffy Presents Speeches of Irish Women in 1916
 iBAM Chicago 2015 (Irish Books Arts and Music) will commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland on October 9,10,11 at the Irish American Heritage Center. The Easter Rising was an armed uprising of the Irish people against Great Britain, from whom they wanted their freedom. A portion of the Proclamation of the Irish Republic read "...representative of the whole people of Ireland and elected by suffrages of all her men and women..."
Had the Easter Rising succeeded, Irish women would have had the vote in 1916 prior to women in England (1918) and the U.S. (1920). It was the Irish women who read the proclamation declaring Ireland's right to freedom from Great Britain, and Brigid will recreate some of those speeches at the iBAMChicago festival.
Brigid Duffy Gerace is a WWHP board member and a member of Actors Equity.
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Coming in November
On Wednesday, November 18, WWHP's Child Care in Chicago committee will present a program at the Union League Club (65 W. Jackson Blvd.) as part of "Chicago in Focus," sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Chicago and the Union League Club of Chicago. The event is from 5 - 7 and free to the public.
Nancy (Sessy ) Nyman, Vice President of Policy and Strategic Partnerships of Illinois Action for Children will speak and the committee will present "Taking a Closer Look at Child Care," a short documentary using their videotaped interviews with child care practitioners and parents of young children.
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