The Newcastle Hoestead of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins Has Been Nominated to be a Natioal Monument With the Support of Many Maine Politial leaders, the Maine AFL-CIO and other Groups.
Vice President Kamala Harris has Committed Her Administration to Saving Women’s Rightss and Worker’s Rights that the Trump Misadministration has Vowed to Destriy – in Her Administration.
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The Maine AFL-CIO joined political leaders, community groups and historians on August 15 at the Frances Perkins Homestead, 478 River Road in Newcastle, to urge the Biden administration to designate the National Historic Landmark as a natioal monument that would be managed by the National Park Service.
In March, President Biden issued an executive order seeking to identify historical sites that recognize the contributions women have made in our country with the goal of protecting them through an Antiquities Act Designation, which would make them national monuments.
US Department of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland was in attendance to take testimonies on the proposal from a range of voices that included Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D), Senate President Troy Jackson (D), Maine AFLl-CIO Communications Director Andy O’Brien, historian Heather Cox Richardson and Perkins’ grandson Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall.
The Perkins Homestad is the ancestral home of Secretary of Labor Franes Perkins, who was instrumental in creating the Social Security Act, a Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which banned child labor and established a minimum wage and a 40-hour work week. The Homestead is a saltwater farm consisting of 57 acres of woods and fields along the Damariscotta River in Newcastle.
Secretary Perkins, who served during President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, played a major role in lifting up, empowering and providing economic security to millions of workers. The Maine AFL-CIO fully supports the effort to turn her Homestead into a national monument to honor and preserve her memory for generations of working people to come.
Perkins was born in Massachusetts. But as a child, she spent summers with her grandmother, at the ancestal home on the River Road in Newcastle. She attended Mount Holyoke College where she majored in chemistry and physics. In 1911, Secretary Perkins saw the tragic Fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. (The site is located in the Greenwich Village section of New YorkCity and is now owned by New York University.) That’s where 146 workers, mostly women and girls, died. That was because they were trapped inside the building when the fire broke out because the building owner had ordered the doors and the exists to the stairwells locked to be sure that no one could slip out for a break.. ,Many jumped from the top floors of the building – to their deaths on the pavement below. That tragedy sparked Perkins’ interest in labor reforms that workers enjoy today. They are also in jeopardy according to the “Project 2024” plan of a second Trump Misadministration should he be returned to the White House in November.
“The timing couldn’t be better,” said Laura Chaney, Development Director for the Perkins Homestead,” to receive this distinction. With Trump and the “Project 2025” plan of the Heritage Foundation trying to destroy the social safety net of the Rooseelt administration and the nation’s first women cabinet member Frances Perkins, it is imperative now that this history be preserved. VP Kamala has committed her administration, should she be elected Presient in November. to preserving these workers’ rights as well as the right for women and their doctors to determine what is the best path for reproductive health for the individual involved. Donald Trump and his Allies have no role in that decision. As Governor Tim Walz has said: “Mind Your Own Dam Business!”
This blogger has written extensively over the years about the Frances Perkins Homestad, at 478 River Road, Newcastle. For mor information, please read posts herein dated January 22, 2024 and October 8, 2023.