Legacy
Frances Perkins left Washington after serving twelve years, the longest serving Secretary of Labor in U.S. history. However, she did not stop working. She spent the last twenty years of her life as author of the best-selling biography The Roosevelt I Knew (1946) and was a member of the U.S. Civil Service Commission (1945-1952).
During her seven years as a commissioner, the principle guiding all her work was that the Commission “is concerned only with the question as to whether the applicant is a suitable person for the post for which he applies.” She opposed any questions on applications which pried into a person’s private life. A lifetime of experience had convinced her that the right to privacy was a basic human right, the basis of liberty in a democratic society.
Frances Perkins passed away May 14, 1965 at the age of eighty-five. She was buried next to her husband and near her parents and grandmother, but her legacy fighting for the working class and the betterment of society remains entrenched in all the social safety net legislation she helped pass.
Her legacy of fighting for the working class lives on. Columbia University, the Kheel Center, the New York Department of Labor, the United States National Archives, and the Frances Perkins Center have scattered records documenting her life’s achievements. In 1980, the Department of Labor Headquarters was renamed the Frances Perkins Building in her honor. The Triangle Fire memorial in NYC, a building recently given landmark preservation status, has a quote from Perkins from an ILR lecture to students in 1964, reading “Every one of them was killed, everybody who jumped was killed.”
In 2024, the Kheel Center put out an exhibit “Frances Perkins and the New Deal” to coincide with the opening of the Frances Perkins Statue in Downtown Ithaca.
In 2024, Sculptor Meredith Bergmann's Frances Perkins park bench statue was installed in Downtown Ithaca, New York. Bergmann's impressive portfolio includes the Women’s Rights Pioneers Monument in New York’s Central Park, the Boston Women’s Memorial, and the FDR Hope Memorial on Roosevelt Island. Bergmann works “for social justice and historical redress through my public art.” She depicts Frances Perkins’ determination, portraying her holding a list of the programs she championed and brought to President Roosevelt.
Frances Perkins Colloquium, August 16-18, 2024
The Telluride Association hosted a Frances Perkins Colloquium at Telluride House on August 16-18, 2024. On August 17, after the installation of the statue in Downtown Ithaca, a group oral history was conducted at Telluride House with former Cornell students who lived with Frances Perkins during her time at Cornell led by Christopher N. Breiseth. The oral history provides insight into the last years of her life during her tenure as visiting lecturer at Cornell's ILR School.
“Frances Perkins Colloquium” by Brian Kennedy, “Telluride Newsletter” Spring 2025
“In Celebration of France Perkins and Her Legacy:” Oral History with Telluride Alum at Telluride House, August 17, 2024.
This video was funded through generous donations from Christopher N. Breiseth, Brian Kennedy, the ILR School, and Cornell University Library. The 48-minute summary of the oral history can be found below.
The full video and footage can be found below and at the Kheel Center.
In 2025, President Joe Biden established the Frances Perkins National Monument through an Executive Order “to strengthen the recognition of women’s history in national parks and historic landmarks across America and honor the legacy and contributions of women and girls to the nation.”
For more information about the Kheel Center's collections on Frances Perkins, please visit our Frances Perkins Libguide and search through our online catalog.