Born April 10: Frances Perkins

Next time we're listing lesbian accomplishments let's move beyond Ellen, k.d., and Rachel to more meaningful matters: Social Security, unemployment benefits, minimum wage, the 40-hour work week, overtime pay, and anti-child labor laws -- all of which came into being under the leadership of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. The first woman ever to hold a US Cabinet position, only she and Harold L. Ickes lasted in their posts for FDR's entire presidency. Born in Boston in 1880, Perkins double majored in physics and chemistry at Mount Holyoke and got her Masters in political science from Columbia in 1910. As Governor, FDR made her New York's first State Commissioner of Labor. She married Paul Wilson, a manic depressive who was frequently institutionalized, and she lived with her lover, heiress Mary Harriman Rumsey, in Georgetown. A power couple par excellence, they hosted dinner parties said to gather at one table Eleanor Roosevelt, Will Rogers, Margaret Bourke-White, Gen. Douglas MacArthur, and unknown Appalachian folk singers. Rumsey died from a riding accident the week before Christmas 1934. Hiding the true nature of her grief, Perkins carried on with the congressional fight for Social Security, which was enacted in August 1935. Perkins lived to 85 in 1965. Her memoir The Roosevelt I Knew is degayed but biographer Kirstin Downey includes her lesbian relationships in The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life and Legacy of Frances Perkins [Kindle]. Lucy Jane Bledsoe chose it as one of her top reads of 2011.