The underrated story of Frances Perkins

New Yorker -As institutions across the country honor Women’s History Month, Perkins [first female Cabinet member] remains a significant, often underappreciated figure. A well-born New Englander, she dedicated herself to more vulnerable populations, inspired in part by the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in 1911, which had killed nearly a hundred and fifty garment workers in Manhattan. She made a career of expanding labor protections, leading a successful campaign to limit the workweek for women (to fifty-four hours), and impressing her future political benefactor, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.... Perkins sought to limit the labor required of others, but she didn’t avoid it herself. Her schedule in Washington was so punishing that, after “a few weeks in her service, the chauffeur assigned to drive her official car resigned,” The New Yorker reported. “He said that he was tired.” The New Yorker story