Why yes, yes I have been listening to Our Sacred Lady of Glamour, Rupaul lately, and I thought it fitting to lift a line from a song for this post about another trailblazer I wanted to briefly share today.
On this day 115 years ago (March 25, 1911), Frances Perkins bore witness to one of the most horrific events in labor history of America; the devastating fire of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. She watched as 47 people, mostly young women and girls (workers of said factory) leapt to their death from windows on the 8th, and 9th floors as the building was consumed by flames. Why were they throwing themselves out of windows, you ask? Because the doors were chained shut, and locked to prevent "theft," of course! The final tally of workers killed that day reached 147 souls, making this gruesome inferno the spark that lead to the birth of The New Deal, first by way of the creation of the citizen's Committee on Safety. In her staggering 54 year career, including a stint as the first woman appointed to a presidential cabinet where she found herself at the helm of the Department of Labor, she played a major role in ushering in the changes, and building laws that gave us weekends, over-time pay, minimum wage, Social Security, the abolition of child labor, just to name a few ... Basically, every worker-protection we take for granted today, traces its roots back to the moment when a woman's tea-time was interrupted by a mass-death event, and she decided that things don't actually have to be this way, and got to work doing something about it.
Thank you Frances!
