The Woman Behind the New Deal – Kirstin Downey

Frances Perkins was named Secretary of Labor by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933. As the first female cabinet secretary, she spearheaded the fight to improve the lives of America’s working people while juggling her own complex family responsibilities. Perkins’s ideas became the cornerstones of the most important social welfare and legislation in the nation’s history, including unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour work week.

Author

Kirstin Downey is an award-winning journalist who was a business writer at the Washington Post from 1988 to 2008.  Downey’s work has focused on illuminating the human implications of important financial trends, particularly boom and bust cycles in the modern economy. 

Discussed January 12, 2020
Book recommended by Michael