Western Maine Labor Council recognizes Frances Perkins and the Center

On May 2nd, the Western Maine Labor Council held their annual breakfast observing Workers’ Memorial Day and May Day in Lewiston. It was attended by 150 people. Several awards were presented, including one to Frances Perkins and the Frances Perkins Center. Here’s what the Lewiston Sun-Journal reported:

A third award went to the late Frances Perkins and the newly created Frances Perkins Center in Newcastle.

Perkins, who had deep family roots in Maine, was the secretary of Labor under Franklin D. Roosevelt, the first female cabinet member, a principal author of the New Deal and a lifelong champion of working people and workers’ fundamental right to organize.

Leslie Manning, deputy director of the Maine Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Standards, delivered a dramatic biographical sketch of Perkins’ life beginning with her witnessing the tragic deaths of 146 young immigrant women in the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City. The tragedy influence her life and led to her being known as “the Mother of the New Deal.” Her grandson, Maine resident Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, accepted the award.

Read the full article here.

Leslie Manning and Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall at the WMLC breakfast