thank you so much, bill. i would also like to single out alley for making this a night in the face of the pandemic. putting together a big public program is different in the best of circumstances, and the challenges that bring us together is presenting new complications. thank you for everything you've done to make this happen. . i am here tonight to talk about something wonderful. something almost miraculous. it marked a radical transformation when it occurred, it was contrary to what had gone on before when america prided itself on being a dog eat dog culture. those were the times of a law is a fair economy. in those days, poverty in both childhood and old age were blamed on the victim. the suffering was believed to be an immutable condition of the human life. in the first centuries of our new republic, human beings were left to sink or swim in the face of economic prosperity and unavoidable economic downturn. some prosper, but many were lost under the waves. then starting in 1933, along came this remarkable development that we now call the new deal. it gave us the social safety network that has allowed people to whether the ups and downs customary in the ordinary human life. this happened in response to the terrifying event that we now call the great depression. we saw the latest iteration of this miracle for ourselves in march of 2020, only two years ago. it was a time the terrifying things were occurring. we saw the advent of a frightening new disease that we did not know how to treat, and that's so threatened our health system that we and many other countries around the world decided to shut down our economy, close our schools, our offices, and most of our stores. we protected peoples lives, but at the expense of stripping millions of their livelihoods. in 2020, in addition to the furor of illness and death, many americans also face the fear of starvation. that's when the miracle happened. on march 27th 2020, congress did something amazing and surprising. we know these guys never seem to get along. both parties blame the issue on the other guys. they spend their time talking or tweeting with people, reading news sources that mostly confirm their own views. but at that time, both sides came together to work together in defense of a common enemy. as america braced for the onslaught of the covid epidemic, a temporarily united congress reached for a tool that would help cushion the blow. with a widespread job losses looming, congress voted almost unanimously in 2020 to expand the nations system to provide an alternate source of income to america's workers. in the next 12 months, a record 48 million people found economic refuge through state employment insurance programs, up from just 5 million of the year before the pandemic. even independent contracts were recovered. it was a vital lifeline, allowing people who had lost their jobs to feed their families and heat their homes when the world's economy shut down. unknown to all but a few, however, is the name of the person who deserves the credit for creating the program. it was a woman named francis perkins, a social reformer from new york who paved the way for unemployment insurance in america. today, perkins is known at least to those who know her at all, mostly as the first woman to serve as the the president -- that, indeed, was unique. women had only had the right to vote for 13 years when francis perkins became u.s. secretary of labor under president franklin eleanor roosevelt. but perkins role is far greater. she was arguably one of the most important and successful progressive politicians, male or female, in u.s. history. and that is because national unemployment insurance is only one of parkinson's accomplishments. she was the driving force behind social security, we had the 40 hour work week, the ban on child labor, the international fire safety code, and the national labor relations act, which gave workers for the first time the right to organizing form unions. perkins legacy is everywhere today. and that brings us to the central question that i am raising for you tonight. who was francis perkins and how did she get so much done? how did a social worker turn herself into a miracle worker? that is what i am planning to tell you about tonight. i am going to start with a short reading from my book, from the prologue. from the woman behind the new deal. on a chilly february night 1933, a middle aged woman waited expectantly to meet with her employer at his residence on eat east 65th street in new york city. she clutched a scrap of paper with hastily written notes. finally assured into his study, the woman brushed aside her nervousness and spoke confidently. they banned bantered casually for a while, as was their style, then she turned serious. her dark luminous eyes holding his gaze. he wanted her to take and assignments, but she had decided he wouldn't accept it unless she unless he allowed her to do it her own way. she held up to piece of paper in her hand and emotion to her to continue. she tipped off the items. a 40 hour work week, a minimum wage, workers compensation, unemployment compensation. a federal law banding child labor. direct federal aid for unemployment relief, social security, a revitalized public employment service and national health insurance. she watched his eyes to make sure that he was paying attention and understood the implications of each demand. she braced for his response, knowing that he often chose political expediency over idealism and was capable of callousness, even cruelty. the scope of her list was breathtaking. she was proposing a fundamental and radical restructuring of american society with enactment of historic social welfare and labor laws to succeed, she would have to overcome opposition from courts, business, labor unions, conservatives. nothing like this has ever been done before in the united states, she said. you know that, don't you? the man sat across from her in his wheelchair amid the clutter of boxes and rumpled rugs. soon, he would head to washington d. c. to be sworn in as the 32nd president of the united states. he would inherit the worst economic crisis in the nation's history. an era of rampant speculation had come to an end. the stock market had collapsed, rendering investments valueless. banks were shutting down, stripping people of their lifetime savings. about a third of workers were unemployed, wages were falling, hundreds of thousands were homeless. real estate prices had plummeted. and millions of homeowners faced foreclosure. his choice of labor secretary would be one of his most important early decisions. his nominee must understand economic employment issues but be equally effective as a coalition builder. he was a handsome man with alkaline features and he studied the plane women sitting before him. no one was more qualified for the job. she knew i was much about labor law administration as anyone in the country. heat known her for more than 20 years. the last four in albany, where she had worked by his side. he trusted her and he knew she would never betray but placing a woman in this role would expose him to criticism. the eight-hour day was a plague of the socialist party. unemployment insurance in laughably improbable. direct aid to the unemployed would threaten his campaign pledge of a balanced budget. still, he said he would backer. it was a job she had prepared for all her life. she had changed her name, her appearance, even her age to make herself a more effective labor advocate. she had studied hat so that she could better succeed in a man's world. she had spent decades building crucial alliances. still, she told the president-elect that she needed time to make her decision. . the next day she posted her husband, a patient to the sanatorium. he was having a good day and he understood when she told him about the job offer. . his first impulse was to front for himself asking how this new job might affect him. when she assured him that he could remain where he was, and that her weekend visits would continue, he gave his permission. that night in bed, the woman who cried in deep whaling sobs that frightened her teenage daughter. she knew the job would change her life forever. she would open herself to constant scrutiny, are shuttered from her peers, and public criticism for doing a job a woman had never done before. yet, she knew she must accept the offer. as her grandmother had told her, whenever a door opened to you, you had no choice but to walk through it. the next day, she called franklin roosevelt and accepted the offer. francis perkins would become the nation's first female secretary of labor. now, as it turned out almost all of it unfolded that she had hoped. the social security act which francis perkins championed, and which passed in 1935, gave us unemployment insurance. the tool that provided an income for 48 million people last year. and social security, which is the main source of income to some 68 million old and disabled people in america. let me stop and say that again, because it is so incredible. last year, 48 million people were on unemployment insurance. and 68 million were on social security. when we shut the u.s. economy down, about 160 million people received their income through programs that francis perkins established. through programs that their own past earnings entitled them to receive. there are in fact 250 million adults in the u.s.. so just to make that clear, 45% of americans were dependent on these key new deal programs last year. 45%, almost half. so what else did she do? . the fair labor standards act passed in 1938 set the standard of a 40 hour work week. a minimum wage, which she hoped would be a living wage, a challenge that remains for us all. a ban on child labor, and the concept of over time paper workers asked to work long hours. this is a genius idea because it allows workers to work longer hours, mostly if they wish to do so, at higher pay. that punishes employers financially if they ask for it too often. she was a major supporter of the federal housing administration, what we call the faa insurance company, to help people buy houses. this allowed people to purchase healthy homes, high genetic, with running water and indoor plumbing in america that was an important new development. over the decades, some 50 million american families, and 8 million today, have become homeowners thanks to f h a insurance. she was also the primary architect of the civilian conservation corps which put 3 million young women and men to work in state national parks, reforesting projects, and incompetent soil roshan. a lot of the nice features that we own joy in the state parks today are as a result of the work of the ccc. the ccc was fdr's idea, but he asked perkins to figure out the details, and she did. that is not all. she was the largest single supporter in the cabinet for two massive public works programs that we call the wpa and the pwa. these rebuilt americas infrastructure. and some of the things they did would be including the lincoln tunnel, the blue ridge parkway. the highway to the florida keys, the beach bay bridge and san francisco, and hundreds of schools, court houses, and park structures all over the country. and that is not all. she helped draft the rule that specifically, and for the first time in america, gave workers the right to organize. to collectively bargained for better wages and benefits. in 1932, only 5% of workers were unionized. about half of today's level. and by the time she died, about a third of the american workforce was unionized, propelling millions of people into the middle class for the first time. and that is not all. the immigration department then was part of the labor department. and she brought tens of thousands of immigrants to the united states to get them out of the hands of the nazis, before most americans even had in the idea of the extent the dangers that they face their. national health insurance, well it never passed. there was too much opposition from the american medical association, who said they would kill social security to prevent what they called socialized medicine. fdr backed off to save social security. we continued to wrestle with the problem today. quite a bit, quite a bit, right? and that is just the years when she was 52 to 59. she had remarkable accomplishments from the time she was 30 until she was 85. advising that kennedy administration until shortly before her death. it was 55 years of work next, kirstin downie talks reshaping americans social safety net. about her book, the one behind so francis perkins achieved almost all of her agenda. who was she? and how did she do you how did that happen? that was the question that got me started on the book. . i first heard her name myself as a a new deal, the life and legacy joke back in 1988 i went to work as a young reporter at the washington post. . i grew up as bill mentioned two, you mostly in hawaii and the panama canal zone, and i was a newcomer to the city. i was trying to learn my way around, so i took a tour bus toward the city. and at some point when we were going down along the mall, the tour bus jet driver told a joke. and this is what it was. which american woman had the worst childbirth experience? francis perkins. she spent 12 years in labor. okay, it drew a big laugh on the bus. and i have to say, i left to. it was a funny joke. but i felt a little bad that i left and i remembered her name. and then i noticed over the years past, over the 20 years that i spent at the washington post, that i kept hearing her name. it was like a distant echo in all of the issues that we covered as news developed around things like workplace rules, workplace discrimination, and funding social security. i heard again and again about what francis had done to establish this program, and that program, and i began to be very surprised that i knew so little about her. and that so few others did as well. i also became increasingly amazed by what she had accomplished as i observed events in washington d.c. over the past 20 years. i began to see how difficult it is to get progressive legislation passed. the lobbyist to control the reigns of power figure out the ways to bottomless things from happening. even when it is obvious that a crisis is looming. i witnessed this over and over at the post, but also later when i served on the staff of the financial crisis inquiry commission, looking at the causes of the financial meltdown of 2008. it was a preventable crisis, but washington could not or would not take the steps to stop it from happening. and this again takes us back to francis perkins. youhow did she do so much, whee know how hard it is to make these kinds of changes? you might be saying, oh, yeah, maybe she did a lot back then. it must have been easier back then. the lobbyists weren't so strong, the courts weren't so hostile, the conservatives must not have been so hateful. but that is not true. she did most of these things in times of parallel our own. there are eerie similarities between our times and hers. she was born in a time of rapid change like our own, with many technological developments causing seismic shifts in the workplace. there was a huge influx of immigration to change the population, and stirred a lot of resentment. and that gap between the rich and the poor was growing wider every day. the role of women was changing, to. she had women in her generation who had to reinvent themselves, imagine himself in a new world. she was born in 1880. james garfield was president. there was a long string of republican presidents during her lifetime. times were tough in maine when she was born. in fact, there was a big downturn in the 18 80s. for those of you who have been to disney world, you will know that you will visit to the haunted house ride. and that is where the image of the haunted house comes from, a big, abandoned, foreclosed victorian host that people can't afford anymore. that's the time in which francis perkins grew up. her family's brick business collapsed and the country was in a downturn. so just like we always do in america when times get hard, the perkins family moved. they moved to worcester, massachusetts. her father opened a stationery store, and she grew up middle class. her parents were renters. still, they managed to send her to college at mount holy oak, where girls could save money on college expenses by sharing in the housekeeping. she wanted to get a job as a social worker in new york city, but she got turned down. instead, she lived at home and worked a series of tampa jobs, filling in for teachers who were on leave. i think a lot of american young people can identify with that. it took a couple years for her to get a regular job, and she had to move to chicago to do it. she was teaching at a girl's school called fairy hall, but it was there that she started volunteering at hall house, a settlement house in downtown chicago led by the social worker, jane adams. there, francis perkins worked with low wage workers and helped them with their financial and family problems. she saw how bad conditions were for the meatpackers, how pressure they, were a little leisure time they had. how their families were buckling under the pressures they were feeling. this is something described so clearly by upton sinclair in the jungle. francis perkins saw older people get kicked to the curb, particularly when there was an economic downturn. and employers would hire young people at lower wages. she saw that people who scraped by could be destroyed by even a brief period of unemployment if they lost their jobs and had no savings. she began to see that much was needed to improve peoples lives. she went to graduate school in new york city, and there she had another shocking and life-changing experience. she witnessed the triangle shirt waste fire, one of the most famous industrial accidents of the early 20th century. now, the triangle company made gibson girl blouses. and those of you who remember, those were the freely, very beautiful blouses that we see in pictures from that era. they employed hundreds of immigrants in their factory that was located on the eighth, ninth, and tenth floors of a manhattan office building in greenwich village. women were lined up shoulder to shoulder at sewing machines, with the leftover fabric, the threat scraps and remains pushed down through the slot behind the sewing machine onto the ground. oil from the machines dropped onto the fabric that was on the floors, and some of the men smoked while they worked. the fire broke out on a sunny spring day in march of 1911. it was a saturday afternoon. remember, then, people typically worked six days a week. workers were locked in and they were trapped. francis perkins was having tea with a friend nearby when the fire broke out. they heard the bells and shouts and they ran across washington square park, and they got there just as the first trap doors started to jump out the windows. about 146 people died that day, either from being burned alive, stampeded, or jumping to their deaths to escape the flames. it was not a freak accident. it's been estimated that 1000 people a day die in workplace accidents in that era. now, many thousands of new yorkers witnessed the fire. but francis perkins became determined to do something about it. she decided that regulations were needed to stop these kinds of abuses from occurring. she decided it needed to stop. but francis was realizing it wasn't going to be easy. she knew she would need to convince people who did not share her views. she realized that chameleon like, she would need to adapt yourself to the conditions of the world in which she lived, not just wish it to be different. it was part of her great emotional intelligence. from her twenties, she began changing herself to make herself more effective. my book is full of examples of ways she got things done. but let me tell you just a few. first of all, her real name wasn't francis. it was fanny. fanny coral lee perkins she started out as a woman called fanny. now, that's a name that has some obvious disadvantages. in her early twenties, while it whole house, she switched her name to francis. people have since wondered why she chose the name francis. some people think it was because of an association with saint francis of a cc. other people think it was a decision to try to pick a gender neutral name, where people wouldn't be quite sure if she was a man or woman but in any case, she changed her name. around that same time, she changed her religion, to. she was raised in the congregation that was common in new england, but she converted to episcopalianism. she was devoutly religious, and her conversion was true. but it's also worth noting that the episcopalian church tended to draw the social elites who could be most helpful in achieving a personal agenda. she began attending a new and rich church in lake forest near the school where she was working, where her fellow parishioners were members of the armor family and the swift's. this is part of what she seems to have embarked upon, which was a strategy of cultivating rich and powerful friends who have the ability to make changes. she changed her political affiliation when she realized it would be a social stigma. in the early twenties, before she -- francis was a member of the socialist party. but when she entered public life, she registered as a democrat, and later, when she was contacted by a historian investigating that era, she denied that she had ever been a socialist at all. instead, she cultivated republicans. she sought out republicans of integrity and enlisted them in her plans. she sent them notes of congratulations when they got promoted. kind notes of condolence when they lost a family member. she took speaking engagements in crowds where people didn't agree with herby viewpoint. she went to the south to explain what they were doing in washington, even though a lot of with they were doing was unpopular there. she learned to talk to people from different backgrounds, learned to convince them. she learned how to make humor, learned how to use humor to make her points. getting people to laugh was the best way to convince them. as a little note, i would like to say, i spent ten years going through her papers and i never found a single mean tweet. she had a genius for recognizing people with talent and intelligence. she reached across the aisle to make common ground with them. she picked out carol hickey as a progressive from illinois to run the wpa, and suggested them to fdr. she picked another progressive republican, john wine of new hampshire, as an american to the international labor organization. he became our u.s. ambassador to great britain, forging an important friendship with the british when it was most needed during world war ii. imagine that. working effectively across the aisle and not insulting the people whose votes you need to get things done. francis perkins had learned early have to talk to a hostile crowd and bring them around. she said later that she learned how to talk to people in public because of her work in the suffrage movement. and she gave an incredible anecdote of how she did it. during the suffrage movement, it was so difficult for people to make the case that they deserve the right to vote. even the avenues they had to make the case were very limited. so what women would do is they would take a soapbox, they would go to a corner in a city, a busy city, where there was a salute on all four corners. they would pull the soapbox outside the saloon, and one of them would stand outside the saloon and begin to talk about the need for women to have the right to vote. a friend would stand behind her, holding the sign. votes for women. now, the women inside the bar, drinking, they would notice there was a young woman out there making a raucous. they would go up to take a look. a lot of times they were laughing or jeering at the women. in any case, they came out of the bar and drew a crowd. francis perkins noticed that usually in the crowd, even if the people were jeering and laughing, there was one person who has a sympathetic look on their face. they realize the young woman is being ridiculed by people, and she would turn to that man and say, hello, could you help us please my friend is having a really hard time holding the banner aloft. do you think you could hold the other side? the man would come out to the front, her friend would go to the side holding votes for women. the man would be on the other side. now francis perkins is preaching about the need for him to have the right to vote. behind her are a man and a woman, standing to make the case. after a while, she would see another sympathetic face. oh, my friend is really tired. do you think you can come and help? and then you would have another man committee will take the other side and francis would continue with her talk about women deserving the right to vote. behind her would be two men holding the banner high. these were some of the tricks of the trade that francis perkins used to learn how to convince an audience that might not have been receptive. a woman standing on a soapbox back bitumen looks very different to women in a crowd than a man with a frail friend standing behind her. since she had the need to work across the aisle very seriously, she was quite religious. and she believed in praying for political enemies. she tried not to hate her political opponents when they were selfish or short sighted. she would pray for them. sometimes it made her blood boil, though, to say them by name so she started to pray for them in categories. like people who bear false witness. she prayed for them, but she felt some relief. when she set up programs, she made sure they actually worked so people would have confidence in them. the civilian conservation core was one of those programs that turned out to be overwhelmingly popular. and it's amazing how well social security has operated after all these years. some of the things that francis perkins did were just funny. at one point, she changed her age. that could have been female vanity. a lot of women wish they were younger. but by making herself two years younger, she made herself the same age as her boss, franklin delano roosevelt. anyone who's ever visited a dating site knows that men think women their own age or younger are much preferable. they think women who are older are much older. and francis perkins began representing herself around that time as having been born in 1882, the same year as fdr, making her the same age as fdr. and i think that was one of the more interesting pieces of emotional intelligence. men respectedshe also changed her ae to better help her succeed in a man's world. she had noticed that most men respected their mothers, and gave mothers more honor than other women, so she began adopting a matronly persona, dark suits, pearls at the neck, hair swept into a bun, try corner hat. you can see a picture of it. here is preferences perkins as she looked in the 30s. now in her youth, francis perkins was described as perched, porky, fashionable, even dimpled. but after that, she was described as matronly. some people even called her ma perkins, which she hated. most women want to be beautiful and attract men, but francis consciously assumed a persona. she was only 33 and still single, and still hoping to marry when she did that. but by looking dependable, respectable, and matronly, it made her seem more trustworthy, to. and i think that is the great secret of francis perkins's life. she applied emotional intelligence to the world around her, and even in the most dire of circumstances, she found made a difference. doing good does not always mean there will be a big, personal payoff. sometimes there is no payoff. sometimes you do things because they're simply the right thing to do. francis perkins certainly didn't get rich because of what she did. in contrast, i might add, to many politicians today. instead, she suffered for what she did. there was a huge backlash against the new deal from business and social conservatives, who didn't like social construct -- social security or the fair labor standards act. she suffered a humility aiding impeachment because of her failure to deport harry bridges, a pacific coast union leader who is accused of being a communist. he had been born in australia, which meant he could be deported. something employers wanted because he was stirring a labor activism. abuse was heaped on her, and the roosevelts astute politicians as they were, seldom stood up for her in public. him and though she had many public successes, she had a tragic personal life. she married, but her husband had bipolar disorder at the time there was no treatment. and her daughter inherited the same ailment. it became a lonely existence. their care was expensive, and the mentally ill seldom think they're fair caregivers for what they have done. francis perkins had to work hard to provide for them. but the essential irony of this is, if she had had a happy life, and easy and good marriage, would she have done what she did? i'm and then that brings us to another question here. how did it happen that she is so little known today? i described to you the long list of all the things that she accomplished. truly extraordinary. how did she get erased? well, there are a couple reasons. she didn't like reporters. especially, she actually despised many of them for being shallow and short sighted. mean-spirited, even. and other people in the new deal administration, especially franklin and his very abel wife, eleanor, astutely cultivated the press. reporters came to blame fdr -- they came to praise fdr and eleanor for what went right, and blame francis for what went wrong. part of the reason she avoided them was to protect your husbands privacy, and that of her daughter. deep rooted sexism was a problem for her, to. even when she played a key role in action many of the men involved would decline from mentioning her in their memoirs. as though they would be seen as less if they were associating with a woman. some men in the cabinet were spitefully ellis of her friendship with fdr, which they found inexplicable. and later, the same sixes among scholars in the 20th century, those responsible for the seminal counts of the new deal chose to overlook or dismiss francis perkins contributions. i would like to ask you to take a look at some of the books about the new deal that you may have, including some in your own home library. once you read my book, you will be amazed at what was omitted. but even amid all of this criticism, francis perkins took enormous pride in what she accomplished. done it all becauseand her strong relis convictions gave her strength at the end of her life. she had done it all because she wanted to make the world a better place, and she did. imagine our world without social security, without unemployment insurance. if you have ever enjoyed a weekend of work, thank francis perkins for the creation of the 40 hour work week. but she didn't do it for the glory or the same. one letter to me sums up her motivation. supreme court justice felix frankfurter wrote her a letter, as she stepped down as secretary of labor. he congratulated her on her successes, and he noted ruefully that she had faced much criticism in doing so. she responded to him, i came to work for god, fdr, and the millions of plane, forgotten, common working men, she told him. the last conversation i had with fdr was of such a nature that i could say with calmness, my cup runneth over, and surely goodness and mercy shall follow me. this lecture series celebrates great lives. and i hope you will remember this talk tonight as a celebration of francis perkins, a person who had a truly great life, and who made all of our lives a good deal better too. and i welcome your questions. as you can tell, i am not technologically savvy. thank you so much. this was a great presentation and i enjoyed it very much. we do have a few questions we would like to address. and most of these, i have several. and most of them deal with personal aspects of her life, as opposed to her public accomplishments. these are questions that probably occurred to a number of people. they have occurred to me, and i would like to get your take on them. one was, what was her relationship with fdr? was it to any extent romantic? >> a very good question. fdr was quite a ladies man, and there were a number of ladies that fell for fdr over the years. francis perkins relationship with him was somewhat different. when she met him, they were both young. he was in the new york senate, she was a young labor activist in new york. and she remembered seeing him on the steps of a state office building before he had become disabled, before he was handicapped. and she noticed how he stood very erect, he was very handsome man. and they had a way of holding his head back like this. someone was asking him a question, and he was answering the question like this. she said it seemed like he just had his nose in the air. he seemed very snooty in those early years but she noticed there was a huge change that occurred to him after his terrible disability. some people think it was polio, others think maybe it might have been some kind of other neurological disease that he had. there has been some dispute about that. but the fact is, he had a very terrible disability that came upon him. he found himself in a wheelchair most of his life. it was very humbling, he had to learn to accept what was given to him. he had a very good education, he was enormously well connected. he had that same kind of emotional genius that francis perkins had. and at some point, the two of them came to recognize each other. francis perkins went to work for the new york industrial commission with then governor al smith, as a result of her very successful work in the wake of the triangle short waist fire. she was already experienced on workplace safety, and workplace management issues. fdr became governor of new york in 1928, and he asked francis perkins to become his industrial commissioner. so she had already been in public office for four years when she joined fdr. she quickly became a key confidant of fdr. he was something he could completely trust. francis perkins was not entirely surprised when he selected her to become secretary of labor. she sort of knew it was already coming, because they've already been working together. i would say she was enormously awed by him. she thought he had a kind of a genius, almost an extra sensory perception in what he could learn and do, based on knowledge that wasn't always entirely presented to him. but she also had a way about her that she was like an older sister to him. she saw his frailty, she thought he was a little funny, and she became quite good at manipulating him. so they had a very interesting, almost a brother sister relationship. she often said later that one of the reasons she was so successful in working with him in the cabinet was that she had no political ambitions. she knew she could not go any further, where is all the other man in the cabinet were hoping that they would someday become president. so she was only looking out for fdr's interest. so she was aware of his many romantic relationships, she did not approve of them. in a sense, she was his best friend. >> you mentioned al smith. did she start to write a book on else mid? >> yes, one of her goals at the end of her life was to write a biography of al smith. in some ways, she admired al smith, at least as much as she admired at -- fdr. she felt alice mitt had been treated cavalierly by the roosevelt group, and that she was very sorry that he fell away from them and ended up becoming something of an enemy of fdr. after she left a federal government, she hoped to write a biography of fdr. she also thought she would live a very long time. she came from a very long-lived family. but she'd been under incredible stress for so many years of her life, and her health started to fail and she was never able to finish it. a version of her book was published, and using some of her notes. but she was never able to complete that work. i can only imagine how interesting it might have been. >> how did she get along eleanor? >> eleanor. this is very interesting. some people at the time assumed that eleanor got francis perkins her job. that was completely untrue. francis perkins was an important public figure long before eleanor roosevelt went on to the public stage. it was an uneasy relationship. eleanor had good reason to feel nervous of any woman in the presence of her husband. women who came into fdr's orbit tended to fall in love with him. and it created a lot of complications for the roosevelt family. so eleanor was a little nervous about it. but she and francis perkins had very much in common. they shared similar values and they had the same goals. and gradually, their relationship grew closer. now, initially, it wasn't that easy. francis perkins was a college graduate, and eleanor roosevelt was not. that was a big gulf in those days. but their relationship grew closer over the years as the time went on. and they also -- eleanor, francis, and fdr formed a very effective trio together. fdr would propose an idea, francis perkins would consider how to make it possible, and eleanor through her enormously popular newspaper columns would explain simple words why that was a useful program and why it was needed. so she would be the public relations side of the story. the three of them were enormously effective together. but francis was still a little nervous around eleanor. eleanor could be tough. she cut people out when she decided she didn't like them anymore. francis was a little nervous around eleanor. but at the end of their lives, they came together in a very intimate way, and there's a really beautiful picture and a 50th anniversary commemoration of the trial of short waist fire. and eleanor roosevelt and francis perkins are sitting together up at the podium. they are each giving talks about what they remember about the triangle fire. picture that they really came to love each other. and the two women have their heads very close together as they talk about what they remember up those days and it is very clear from the picture that they came to love each other. >> eleanor outlived francis did she? >> actually eleanor, francis perkins outlived eleanor just briefly. and it was interesting, francis perkins had some very interesting observations about eleanor, and how she had managed to build herself up from the shy insecure young women, to this amazingly popular public figure who was known and left all over the world. and francis perkins told him young men at cornell where she was teaching that it was amazing when eleanor had done in her life, but it was obvious also interesting which he had done for herself. >> what about france this has been. did she marry? >> this is very interesting. francis porky perkins married and i think was a love match. a very handsome young man named paul wilson. a wealthy man from chicago who lived in a very will rich neighborhood of chicago, and who came to new york as part of a pioneering effort sort of clean up new york city. sort of an anti tammany group. and so while francis perkins was very important doing things on the workplace front, her husband paul wilson was very important as a key official may very exciting young kennedy ask new york mayoral administration. but when he was very young in only his mid 30s, he started to develop very dramatic signs of bipolar disorder, he invested his money in a gold mine that failed, and left himself penniless. and francis perkins became the sole supporter of the family. she stayed married with him. in fact they are buried together outside of the family homestead in denver scott of maine. she loved him very much but he could never really be a partner again from that time would've. >> what about their daughter, they had one daughter, is that correct? >> they had a very lovely daughter, suzannah. arctic slickly gifted in part of an avant-garde community of artists in new york. but who developed a bipolar disorder as well needed years of treatment and care. >> i have to ask you this. because i've heard this asked before, was she gay? >> that is a good question. i would say a lot of it was hit francis perkins left everybody for points in her life. there is no question that she was in love and loved her husband paul wilson. that after he was institutionalized, and because she was very religious, there was no thought in her minds have to force or separation from her marriage. so she found herself alone. this was a time that a lot of women were taking a more, a bigger public role and francis perkins lived with a series of different women in what's seemed to have been relationships that were much more than friendships. one was with mary herman ramsey, the sister of afro heroin, one of the wealthiest women in america. and in fact, one of the things that makes that relationship quite interesting is that mary harem as well, the allowed francis perkins to do the kind of socializing that allowed her to help get her point in your case across to powerful people who could help make the things that she wants with happen. so it was a relationship, but it was a relationship that was very deep and, a young man who knew both women well thought that francis perkins would surely leave public life when mary herman died unexpectedly in horseback riding accidents. so i guess we can say is that francis perkins love to different people at different points in her life. and that some of them were women. >> you know iran across the term in your book that i don't think i had ever seen before. i think the term was a boston marriage. what's a boston marriage why is it called a boston merits. >> well i think a boston marriage was what we call a partnership today, or civil union. but before it was possible for people to marry, a lot of intelligent new england women, well lot of women, found each other and formed a household together and they like to call it a boss inherent. >> is that a commonly used term? i had never heard it. >> well i think it was known. and certainly not in boston. >> known in boston, okay. a lot of questions more politically than ample policy. . is it true that that she oppose the equal rights amendment? >> well this is something that has made francis perkins a controversial figure in the women's movement. francis perkins spot fought very hard to get laws passed that provided protections for women and children. back before they got the ban on child labor, and the limitation on work hours, they were first able to get some state laws passed the provided for limitations on women and children. based on the fact that their health and emotional and physical development required them to get to a certain amount of rest. so they were able to get some protections and workforce limitations for women and children that they had not been able to get four-man. the equal rights amendment would ban those kinds of differential was. so although the equal rights amendment has much to commend it, francis perkins believed that it could end up inadvertently affecting some people who benefited from more protective legislation that women and children need. and so she was not a fan of the equal rights amendment. and that has major anathema to generation of feminists who think that the equal rights amendment is desperately needed and remains in the event. but her view was that women need, that the special situation involving around childbearing, caring for aging adults, puts responsibilities on men that most women don't have and that women need protections and programs that may not equally applied to men. >> right. a last question, that also has ahead of criticism minute. and that is that some people have noted that farmworkers and domestic servants were essentially left out of the fairly poor standards act. >> that's right. >> and many of those obviously are people of color. the questions is why did francis perkins lattice to happen? >> right. by 1938 when the fair labor standards act passed, fdr no longer had the majorities and the political control heat had earlier when he first became elected. his court packing plan had made him a lot of enemies, made a lot of people skeptical of what he had in mind. so the fairly were standards act was not at all that francis perkins visions. you might remember dimensions earlier in my top that she didn't want to just be a minimum wage, she wanted it to be a living which. so from the beginning, crafting the fair labor standards act, compromises had to be made that she was starry had to be made but she still thought it was better to get protections for some than the, seek perfection and get protections for none. so as it turned out, fairly brief standards act, and i may get these numbers not exactly precise, covered about 8 million workers. and so that meant 1 million workers for the first time habitations on their work hours, minimum wage, the ban on child labor happened in that. but, as you say, farmworkers and domestic servants were excluded. that was about 500,000 workers at that time. most of them, many of them people of color. so people have pointed to that and criticize perkins for agreeing to. but she was a great believer that it was important to get what you could the best you could for as many people as you could, and go back and fix the situation later. and the fact is, the fair labor standards act continues to have major holes after all these years. and it seems a little silly to blame francis perkins for wet americans have been managed effects since 1938. >> sort of reminiscent of roosevelt's overall strategy was that she was essentially pragmatist, wouldn't you say? we had a half loaf solution rather than. then >> to get the best you can at the time and i go back and try to make it better later, but to what you can when you can. better to get something done nothing. >> right. well, carson, thank you so much for being with. us >> thank you so much for having me here. it has been wonderful. >> good night to everybody. american history tv, saturdays on c-span two, exploring the people and events that tell the american story. at 10 am eastern, crimea word winner and public enemy cofounder chuck d. talks about the music and social change and his songs shook the planet project. and at 2 pm, on the presidency, we will feature a profile of pat nixon. with scholars looking at mrs. nixon's image, her person to person diplomacy, under work to get more women into government roles and on to the supreme court. exploring the american story. watch american history tv, saturdays, on c-span two,. and find a full schedule on your program guide, or watch online anytime at c-span.org slash history. our weekly series the presidency, highlights the politics and policies of u.s. presidents. noah feldman and diana shaw marked abraham lincoln's 12th birthday from with a speech from the constitution center. the top of the 16th presidents speeches, and what they reveal about his views on the constitution. here is a portion of the conversation. >> let me start by saying that, many people look to the gettysburg address and cup scene greek overtones. and there is no question that this has drawn attention very actively. but it is also suffused with a biblical idea of morality. and as we get in my view of lincoln i check you leading his more one of the united states. and in the second inaugural address, which maybe will come to our next round conversation, he is most explicit writing that. but in my view, he is starting to do that at the gettysburg address. and you know, the school three scorer -- self consciously biblicizing it is biblical. to mark in the 19th century, almost all of whom are protestants, but luckily which meant general morality. 19 century americans believed that morality was derivative of the bible. they were, as i say, heavily protestant and protestants not that you should read the bible. and through the bible you get access to morality. lincoln could not interpret the history of the united states in these moral terms, or the constitution in these moral terms. so long as the constitution enshrines slavery which he knew to be more wrong. so up until bluemess a proclamation, he was committed to the constitution. but that meant he was committed to a compromise that included a compromise with immorality. and that put him in a contradictory situation. after emancipation, he was now able to describe the constitution as fundamentally moral. so when he said that the constitution, that our country, was not only conceived in liberty but dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, he could not have said that about the constitution until he broke the constitution. because the constitution wasn't dedicated to that proposition. because the constitution tried slavery. once emancipation was established as fact, by lincoln, he could reconceptualize the country in these terms. and this is where the new birth of freedom part comes in. and i have talked about this with peter bottger, who i think is in the audience, who's one of the earlier readers in my book. new birth is a very resident phrase for a 19th century american protestant christians. all of whom i think would have recognized immediately the idea of new birth in christ. now, i am not arguing here that lincoln was making a consciously christian argument, what i'm saying is that he was drawing upon the threat of moral thought which was a derivative of christian ideals to express the new idea. and the idea here was that just as the old testament had been superseded by christian liberty in the new testament, so the new birth of freedom would supersede these slavery president in the original constitution so that the country would then be reborn. and he plays that this idea more fully in his inaugural address. as a moral country. one that therefore can be improper fulfillment of the ideals of morality that were present in the original declaration of independence on lincoln's reading. but we're not present in the constitution. that is the explanation for why lincoln was able to use this kind of religious language. both in the address, and in the you second inauguration. he was freed up to do so by emancipation, which ended the immoral qualities of the constitution. that ended the possibility of a moral accounting. that was very