Remember Frances Perkins this Labor Day, a champion of workers' rights

As we continue to celebrate our country's 250th year in 2026, we remember the American heroes who made this country what we know and love today. This Labor Day, Americans have a special opportunity to honor present-day workers alongside the people and movements from our past. Labor Day encourages us to remember America's labor movement and the fight for workers' rights as industrialization turned to globalization and now to the technological age. Workers have never had a greater champion than Frances Perkins, and it is a shame that more Americans do not know her by name. Perkins was the first woman to join a presidential Cabinet, serving in the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration as secretary of Labor for 12 years. She became Labor secretary during the Great Depression, when there were 13 million jobless Americans — a quarter of the U.S. workforce at the time. Turning crisis into opportunity, Perkins became the longest-serving secretary of Labor in American history. It is easy to understand why: Perkins was the architect behind many of FDR's New Deal policies. She worked tirelessly to improve the lives of everyday Americans. In her words, she 'came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common workingmen.' Perkins's relentless advocacy for working people ensured that policymakers considered them as they created the social safety nets and protections that would change their lives forever. Not only did Perkins help establish Social Security, which still supports tens of millions in 2026, she also rewrote the proverbial rules of the workplace. It was Perkins who established many of the workplace standards that we still rely on, including the 40-hour work week. She also drafted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, banning child labor and establishing a minimum wage to improve living conditions. Perkins was partly inspired to action after witnessing New York's tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire early in her career, which killed 146 workers. She watched as workers — most of them young women and immigrants — jumped to their deaths from the upper floors of the 10-story Triangle Shirtwaist Co. building in Greenwich Village, knowing that the factory exits were locked and the single fire escape was inoperable. Following this tragedy, Perkins didn't just hope for a better future; she worked tirelessly to make it a reality. Her advocacy created a retirement program for workers and mandated compensation for work-related accidents, in addition to establishing an unemployment insurance program that was unimaginable just years earlier. Perkins was a vital bridge between the 18th-century ideals of the Founding Fathers and the complex realities of the 20th-century industrial economy. She showed that the Declaration of Independence is not a static document; it is a living contract between a government and its people. Frances Perkins revolutionized our expectations for the role that government could serve in our lives. She believed her and her colleagues 'evolved the ethical principle that it was not right or just that an honest and industrious man should live and die in misery.' Countless working Americans live safer lives today because of Perkins. Nearly a century after her service as Labor secretary, Perkins's vision continues to be a beacon for better. We honor that vision at the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, Maine. The Perkins Family Homestead, now the Frances Perkins National Monument, is where Perkins spent her childhood summers with her grandmother and first learned the value of hard work and caring for your neighbors. Today, Americans can visit the national monument and learn more about her legacy — hopefully positioning her as a household name alongside George Washington, Harriet Tubman and the many other figures we celebrate from our nation's history. This Labor Day, our mission is to honor the American workforce that built our nation's strength, prosperity and high standard of living, while acknowledging that there is still work yet to be done. As we envision the next 250 years, we can find inspiration in the dreamers and doers who came before us. Amanda Hatch serves as executive director of the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, Maine.