The search for social justice infused all of Frances Perkins's eighty-three years. In her youth she rebelled against the grim orthodoxy of social Darwinism, becoming first a social worker at Jane Addams's Hull House and later one of New York's leading advocates of social and labor legislation. The infamous Triangle Fire on March 25, 1911 shocked the state's conscience and awakened its people to the justice of her cause.

Entering soon after on a new has in her career, she became a member of the New York state Industrial Board and in 1929 Franklin Roosevelt's state Industrial Commissioner. In 1933 Roosevelt appointed her the New Deal's Secretary of labor, a post which she held until his death. Although she was the first woman in the Cabinet, she wore this honor with the same nonchalance as she did the tricorne hat that became her symbol.

Madame Perkins, as she was known helped to draft countless bills, including the social Security Act, all providing laborers with a self-respect they had not had before. Spurring the President on, she fast came to embody the New Deal's reformist spirit. Even after her departure from government, she continued to challenge complacency, supporting the civil rights movement as vigorously as her age permitted. The humility and tenacity that marked her life give dignity to the cause for which she struggled.