Summoned: Frances Perkins and The General Welfare

By Jennifer Robinson / Web Producer

Published March 24, 2026 at 3:13 PM PDT

In 1911, 31 year-old Frances Perkins was visiting a friend in New York City when they both heard sirens. They rushed out to witness 147 workers, many of them young women, jumping to their deaths from 11th story windows in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. This moment ignited Perkins’ remarkable political career – a decade before she had the right to vote.

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The first woman appointed to a U.S. Presidential cabinet, Frances Perkins created the social safety net that continues to shape the lives of Americans today. In her 12 years as Labor Secretary under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Perkins created the Social Security program, a federal minimum wage, the 40-hour work week and unemployment compensation, and ended the legal use of child labor.

"Summoned: Francis Perkins and The General Welfare" tells the story of Perkins’ life through rare archival recordings of her voice, and interviews with Nancy Pelosi, George Mitchell, David Brooks, Lawrence O’Donnell and Amy Klobuchar.

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Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected Governor of New York, he and Frances Perkins began to map out the blueprint for a program of social insurance that did not exist anywhere else in the country.

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Frances Perkins once said, "Treat aliens in a manner worthy of the dignity and professed humanity of the United States."

Alice Kessler-Harris on Francis Perkins: "In the moment in time in which she was operating, she was just an unusual figure. Unusually committed, unusually brave, alone in a world full of men." — Alice Kessler-Harris on Francis Perkins: *"In the moment in time in which she was operating, she was just an unusual figure. Unusually committed, unusually brave, alone in a world full of men."*

Credits: Distributed by American Public Television

Summoned: Frances Perkins and The General Welfare

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