Making the Frances Perkins Homestead a national monument is a great idea. Perhaps the site might include a statue of Frances Perkins. That would add to the remarkably few portrayals in public spaces of Maine women. Alternatively, the homestead could promote portrayals elsewhere in Maine. Perkins’ statue could be near Maine’s Labor Department in Augusta, or in Portland, which has statues of whom? A mural at the University of Southern Maine might be good too.

In addition to the important causes for which Perkins fought, as secretary of labor in Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, she continued to be a supporter of immigration and of refugees, in particular from fascism and Nazism. As early as 1933, Perkins asserted the right of her department, Labor, to make decisions on admitting people from abroad who were fearing for their lives and to admit on work permits refugees from Nazi Germany and other countries. Those policies were undermined by the State Department and by some of her own Labor Department colleagues, who were hostile to Jewish and other refugees. Sadly, around 1940, FDR chose to put the issue under the oversight of the State Department – which did its best to keep refugees out, essentially leaving them in Europe to die.

Eileen Eagan
Portland