Local 501 Labor History Lunch & Learn - The Forgotten Legacy of Frances Perkins
Date
Tuesday, October 14, 2025 - 11:30am-12:30pm
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When: Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2025, 11:30 a.m. -12:30 p.m.
Where: Duluth Conference Room 12302 on the 12th floor of the Great Northern Building
Lunch will be provided
About the presentation - The Forgotten Legacy of Frances Perkins
How Did We Get Social Security and Unemployment Insurance to Begin With?
Where would this nation be without the many benefits of Social Security? Medicare, Medicaid, old age retirement funds, 40-hour work week, minimum wage, and disability benefits are now part of modern America’s embedded structure. How about unemployment insurance? Or the basic fire standards for commercial structures, including fire alarms and escapes. Let’s not forget about food sanitation standards, which help prevent rats and roaches from ending up in our foods. And there is more, much more.
Frances Perkins was the first secretary of a cabinet department in American history. She was a lot more than someone who broke through a glass ceiling. She was the architect of the bedrock social programs upon which so many Americans depend. But the average American does not know who she is. How can learning her story help us deepen our understanding not only of women's contributions to American history but also of the importance of the programs she shaped.
About the Presenter
Peter Rachleff has spent the last forty-five years exploring the intersections of race and class in the development of the United States, from our economy, politics, and popular culture to the emergence and evolution of social movements for progressive change. These concerns have driven his research, writing, teaching, and activism. In 1981 he earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of Pittsburgh, writing his dissertation about the development of the working class in Richmond, Virginia. This became the basis for his book, BLACK LABOR IN RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 1865-1890 (University of Illinois Press paperback,1989). From 1982 to 2012 Peter taught labor, immigration, and African American history at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, and, in 2014, with his partner Beth Cleary, co-founded the East Side Freedom Library with the mission to "inspire solidarity, work for justice, and advocate for equity for all" (see https://eastsidefreedomlibrary.org). Peter has also published books on postal workers, the Hormel strike of 1985-86, and the unionism of food service workers, and he has published articles in ten books and more than a dozen journals.