Eighty year ago in March 1933 Frances Perkins became the first woman in the United States cabinet and the architect of some of the most far-reaching and important reforms and social legislation ever enacted in America, including the establishment of Social Security. This photo of the young Perkins when she was an investigator of factories appears near the beginning of my biography “A Woman Unafraid: The Achievements of Frances Perkins.” Near the end of my book, I include words of wisdom she spoke shorty before her death at the age of eighty-five in 1965: “You just can’t be afraid . . . if you’re going to accomplish anything.”
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