10 Women to Consider for the $20 Bill
4. Frances Perkins
The first female U.S. Cabinet member, and the longest-serving labor secretary in history, Frances Perkins served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945. Through the years of recovery from the Great Depression, Perkins championed many of the most significant innovations in social welfare that comprised the New Deal. Unemployment benefits, pensions, welfare, minimum wages, and overtime pay came out of legislation Perkins helped imagine and draft. The Federal Emergency Relief Act, the Civil Conservation Corps Act, the National Labor Relations Act, the Social Security Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act were all enacted under her watch. She resisted including American women in the military draft for World War II so they could enter the civilian workforce in greatly expanded numbers.
After Roosevelt’s death in 1945, she served in President Truman’s administration, later becoming a professor at Columbia University.
