The Frances Perkins Homestead, on the east side of River Road, south of U.S. Route 1, in Newcastle. Library of Congress photo

As we celebrate and think about the meaning of Labor Day, it seems like an appropriate time to acknowledge one of the great champions of American workers, Frances Perkins, whose homestead is in Maine.

Frances Perkins was an amazing woman and an amazing leader. She was the first woman to ever serve as a cabinet secretary for a US president. As President Franklin Roosevelt’s secretary of labor for 12 years, she was responsible for much of the New Deal. 

The policies that Perkins fought for continue to benefit every person in the United States, even all of these years later. She was responsible for the creation of Social Security, which helps people retire with dignity. She helped to create the minimum wage and the 40-hour work week. She led the fight to end child labor, and forced through important workplace safety reform. 

President Roosevelt sent her to Europe pre-World War II to gather intelligence about the politics and military readiness on the continent. 

This portrait of Frances Perkins, taken in 1918, is part of the Harris & Ewing Collection at the Library of Congress. Harris & Ewing, photographer

She was a social worker and teacher. And through her advocacy, she helped to save thousands of Jewish refugees who fled the Holocaust during World War II, even though it meant fighting the powerful US State Department. 

Through her trailblazing life, she has helped to open the doors of political opportunity to generations of women. She took a seat at the most powerful table in the country, so other women would have the same opportunity. 

And her homestead, the place where she came for inspiration, rest and rejuvenation, is located in Newcastle, not far from Damariscotta. 

When the Perkins Homestead is open to the public in the future, visitors will see the desk where she worked, the typewriter that was given to her by colleagues at the Department of Labor, artifacts of her life and the stone wall on which she leaned as she learned of the start of World War II on a car radio in the driveway. 

Because of Perkins’ achievements and the way in which her values, learned here in Maine, impact the lives of the American people,  her homestead deserves to become a national monument managed by the National Park Service. 

That’s why the board of directors of the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle has launched an effort to have the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark designed as a national monument by President Biden. 

When Shannon Estenoz, assistant secretary of the Department of Interior, visited the Frances Perkins Homestead National Historic Landmark, she told an amazing story about another historic site. 

Visitors to the Lincoln National Historic Site get to experience a remarkable home that in most ways reflects the life and times of President Abraham Lincoln. When visitors climb the stairs, park rangers tell them: “That’s the original handrail that President Lincoln used.” 

The reaction is near universal. People pull away from the handrail, astounded and afraid to damage something so historic. Then the park rangers follow up: “Go ahead. Touch it. That’s the closest any of us will ever get to shaking hands with President Lincoln.”

It’s an amazing story that illustrates the role that the National Park Service plays in keeping our country’s shared history alive. They manage significant locations around the country that bring us close to the past, that teach us important lessons about yesterday and important lessons about today. They give us a chance to touch history. 

With this designation, more Americans will have the chance to learn about Frances Perkins and the way that she has changed the American workplace forever, and they can do it by coming as close as possible to shaking hands with this incredible woman herself. 

State Sen. Peggy Rotundo is a member of the board of directors for the Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle, Maine. She is currently seeking reelection to the Maine Senate.