The TroopHR Podcast · 2026-04-07 · 8 min
Before the weekend existed as we know it, before child labor laws, before Social Security - there was Frances Perkins standing on a sidewalk in Greenwich Village watching history burn. On March 25, 1911, Perkins witnessed the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire firsthand - 146 workers, mostly young immigrant women, killed in minutes because factory doors were locked from the outside. That moment didn't just move her. It changed the trajectory of American labor history. In this mini-sode, host Taylor Bradley traces the remarkable life of Frances Perkins - from social worker to the first woman ever appointed to a U.S. presidential cabinet. When FDR asked her to serve as Secretary of Labor in 1933, she didn't just say yes. She walked into the room with a list of demands: a 40-hour workweek, a minimum wage, unemployment insurance, a ban on child labor, and Social Security. Over her 12 years in office - the longest tenure of any Labor Secretary in history - she turned that list into law. Every Friday afternoon when you shut down your laptop and head into the weekend, you're living inside the world Frances Perkins built.
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