Frances Perkins

For more information on Frances Perkins, visit Britannica.com.

(b. Boston, Massachusetts, 10 Apr. 1882; d. 14 May 1965) US; Secretary of Labour 1933 – 45 Perkins attended local schools before graduating BA from Mount Holyoke College in 1905. Thereafter she continued to study economics and sociology at the universities of Chicago, Pennsylvania, and Columbia, graduating MA from the latter in 1910. She became executive secretary of the Consumers' League in New York 1910 – 12, and in addition, from 1911, lectured in sociology at the Adelphi College. Between 1912 and 1933 she served on a variety of industrial boards including the New York Commission on Safety 1912 – 17; the State Factory Commission 1912 – 13; New York State Industrial Commission 1919 – 21; New York State Industrial Board 1923 – 9, becoming an Industrial Commissioner for New York 1929 – 33. During these years she established a reputation both as a reformer and as an expert on social problems, and she came to the attention of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Governor of New York 1929 – 33. On becoming President he appointed her Secretary of Labour, the first American woman to hold Cabinet rank. She remained in post throughout Roosevelt's presidency and continued briefly under Truman.

Perkins's period in office was notable for the introduction of wide-ranging reforms including the abolition of child labour, the introduction of unemployment insurance, minimum wage legislation, and a variety of measures to improve working conditions. She is also credited with devising and launching many of the New Deal initiatives aimed at stimulating employment.

After her retirement from the Department of Labour in 1945, she accepted an appointment from Truman to become a civil service commissioner, serving until 1953. At the same time she became a visiting lecturer in labour relations and political science at the University of Illinois and subsequently, in 1956, at Cornell University.

Perkins was not without her critics. That the Department of Labour was headed by a woman during the nation's most severe depression never disappeared as an issue. Some accused her of lack of economic expertise. Feminists were outraged by her suggestion that married working women should vacate jobs in favour of unemployed men. There were demands for her resignation from various quarters. Nevertheless, she is remembered for her shrewdness and for being a tireless and enthusiastic pioneer in the field of social and industrial reform. She is the author of several books including: Life Hazards from Fire in New York Factories (1912); Women as Employers (1919); People at Work (1934); The Roosevelt I Knew (1947).

Frances Perkins (1882-1965), American social worker, U.S. secretary of labor, and civil service commissioner, was the first woman to serve in a presidential Cabinet.

Frances Perkins was born in Boston, Mass., on April 10, 1882, and grew up in Worcester, the daughter of a manufacturer. At the age of 16 she entered Mount Holyoke College. Following her graduation in 1902, she spent 2 years in Worcester as a social worker for the Episcopal Church. She then taught school near Chicago before working at Hull House. After studying at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance, she took a master's degree at Columbia University in 1910.

Perkins next became executive secretary of the Consumers' League of New York, which investigated industrial conditions and lobbied for ameliorative legislation. In 1913 she married Paul Caldwell Wilson, a financial statistician, and they had one daughter.

Between 1919 and 1929 Miss Perkins was industrial commissioner for the state of New York. She helped get further reductions of the work week for women, the publication of monthly figures on unemployment within the state, and other reforms. She was also active in immigrant education programs and won the confidence of both trade unionists and middle-class reformers. In 1929 newly elected governor Franklin D. Roosevelt made her labor commissioner of New York. Four years later she followed Roosevelt (now president) to Washington as secretary of labor, the first woman to hold a Cabinet appointment.

Although opposed by both business groups and the leadership of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) because of her sex and her liberal social and economic views, Perkins did a reasonably good job. Her department improved the operation of the Children's Bureau, began issuing regular unemployment figures, and contributed significantly to the standardization of state labor laws and the formulation of the Social Security Act. The Labor Department proved ineffectual in dealing with the industrial disturbances of the 1930s and with the strife between the AFL and the emergent Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).

Despite persistent, often harsh, criticism, Perkins stayed in office, resigning only after Roosevelt's death in 1945. Soon after, however, President Harry Truman appointed her to the U.S. Civil Service Commission. She served quietly and rather obscurely until she resigned in 1953. For the next 12 years Perkins lectured at Cornell University and other institutions. She died in New York City on May 14, 1965.

Further Reading

Autobiographical information on Perkins is in her The Roosevelt I Knew (1946). The most scholarly account of her career as secretary of labor is in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Age of Roosevelt (3 vols., 1957-1960).

(1880-1965), social reformer and U.S. secretary of labor. Perkins grew up in Worcester, Massachusetts, where her father ran a stationery business. She was raised in comfortable, middle-class, Republican circumstances. Perkins attended Worcester Classical High School, a largely male institution, and then went to Mount Holyoke College, graduating as president of the class of 1902. (She cherished the Holyoke experience for the rest of her life, serving on the college's board of governors and remaining involved in decisions affecting the school.) She taught physics and biology for several years, moving to Lake Forest, Illinois, in 1904. There she became involved in the social settlement movement, which kindled the interest in social reform that was to govern her life.

In 1907, Perkins moved to Philadelphia and then to New York City where she worked for social reform groups and simultaneously earned a master's degree in sociology and economics from Columbia University. In 1910 she became secretary of the New York Consumers' League where she investigated labor conditions and successfully lobbied the state legislature for a law to restrict the hours of women workers to fifty-four hours a week. Her association with Al Smith during those years led eventually to her appointment in 1918 as the first woman to serve on the New York State Industrial Commission. She became chair of the commission in 1926 and industrial commissioner of the state of New York in 1928. She was reappointed to that office by Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1929 and retained it until her appointment by him as secretary of labor in 1933.

When she married Paul Caldwell Wilson in 1913, Perkins successfully fought to retain her own name. Until her husband lost much of his inheritance in 1918, Perkins was involved with volunteer work. Thereafter, she worked to support her husband and child, a task that was to become increasingly important as Wilson began exhibiting the mental irrationality that was to keep him institutionalized for much of his later years.

The first female cabinet member in U.S. history and one of only two Roosevelt cabinet appointees to serve throughout his tenure, Perkins brought to the job an unwavering devotion to social reform. She demanded, and got from Roosevelt, a commitment to support federal initiatives in the areas of unemployment relief and public works, insurance to guard workers from the hazards of old age and unemployment, and efforts to regulate child labor as well as wages and hours for adults. These became the cornerstones of the New Deal's policies for depression relief and reform. Carefully conceived under Perkins's watchful eyes and shepherded by her through the intricacies of the political process, the Social Security Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act remain monuments to her ability to make progress through incremental steps and to her mastery of the art of compromise.

Although Roosevelt leaned heavily on her, Perkins's strong attachment to social justice rendered her an unpopular figure in Congress and the press. She alienated business but won over the leaders of organized labor by resisting pressure from industrialists to intervene in strikes. She refused to succumb to threats of impeachment when right-wing congressional leaders urged her to deport Harry Bridges, leader of the Longshoremen's Union and a suspected communist, without appropriate legal action.

Perkins resigned her position after Roosevelt's death in 1945. Thereafter, she wrote a best-selling book, The Roosevelt I Knew, lectured widely, and accepted a professorship in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University.

Bibliography:

George Martin, Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins (1976); Susan Ware, Beyond Suffrage: Women in the New Deal (1981).

Author:

Alice Kessler-Harris

See also Labor; New Deal; Settlement Houses; Social Security.

A political leader and reformer of the twentieth century. After briefly serving at Jane Addams's Hull House, she worked in various reform activities and government positions. In 1933 President Franklin D. Roosevelt made her the first woman to hold a cabinet position when he appointed her secretary of labor. She assisted in drafting much of the New Deal legislation, including that which created the Social Security System.

At a time when few women achieved prominence in national politics, Frances Perkins distinguished herself as a public official, a respected labor and industry expert, and an adviser to the president of the United States. When Perkins was named secretary of labor by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, she became the first woman in U.S. history to hold a cabinet post. Perkins used her position to help launch the sweeping social and economic reforms of the New Deal.

Perkins was born April 10, 1880, in Boston, and raised in Worcester, Massachusetts. After graduating from Worcester Classical High School, Perkins attended Mount Holyoke College, where she studied physics and chemistry and was class president. As a senior at Mount Holyoke, Perkins was influenced by Jacob A. Riis's 1890 book How the Other Half Lives and by a speech given by Florence Kelley, the general secretary of the National Consumers League. Perkins's growing awareness of the plight of underprivileged U.S. citizens would lead to her life's work as a labor activist. After graduating from Mount Holyoke in 1902, Perkins pursued further studies in economics and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University. She earned a master's degree from Columbia in 1910.

After graduate school, Perkins briefly taught biology and physics in a school in Lake Forest, Illinois. In her off-hours, she volunteered at Jane Addams's Hull House, in nearby Chicago, and at other settlement houses. There, Perkins witnessed the poverty and wretched working conditions endured by thousands of U.S. citizens. Determined to help improve the plight of workers, she returned to New York City to work as a lobbyist with her mentor, Kelley, at the New York Consumers League.

Perkins's task was formidable. Throughout the early twentieth century, U.S. businesses were unregulated: workers in sweatshops worked long hours for low pay in unsafe working conditions. There were no building codes to ensure the employees' safety, no regular inspections of equipment and machinery, and no limit to the number of hours employees could work. Children routinely were employed in factories, mills, and mines under the most miserable conditions. Some women worked nineteen hours a day with their children by their side.

An industrial tragedy heightened Perkins's resolve to force changes in the workplace. On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, in New York City. Perkins happened to be in the neighborhood and watched as employees trapped on the top three floors of the burning ten-story building jumped from windows to their death. The door to the only stairway in the building had been locked by employers, to halt break-ins. One hundred workers perished inside the building, and forty-seven jumped or fell to their death. The owners of the company were later absolved of criminal negligence for the disaster and collected $64,925 in property damage insurance.

In the fire's aftermath, the New York State Factory Commission was created, with Perkins named as chief investigator. She also became a member of the Committee on Safety of the City of New York and lobbied hard for legislation to make the workplace safer. She toured the state with Alfred E. Smith and Robert F. Wagner and documented the deplorable conditions faced by workers. An exhaustive investigation led to new laws to protect the labor force.

A major success for Perkins was the passage of a bill by the New York Legislature to limit the workweek to fifty-four hours for women and children. The bill was vigorously opposed by the employers of the four hundred thousand female factory workers throughout the state. While lobbying for the bill, Perkins became acquainted with Roosevelt, who was a New York state senator. Although Roosevelt's support of the fifty-four-hour bill was lukewarm, Perkins developed a professional relationship with him that grew stronger as Roosevelt's views on labor and government began to mirror her own.

In 1913 Perkins married Paul Caldwell Wilson and rejected prevailing social convention by retaining her maiden name for professional purposes. In 1918 she was appointed to the New York State Industrial Commission.

Perkins's work with Roosevelt in New York led to a position in the federal government. When Roosevelt was elected president in 1932, he asked Perkins to become secretary of labor. Although she argued that a female trade unionist should be nominated for the post, she eventually accepted the position. Perkins became the only cabinet member to serve during all four of Roosevelt's terms of office.

When Roosevelt took office, the country was in the midst of the Great Depression. About a third of the nation's workforce was unemployed. As labor secretary, Perkins helped shape the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C.A. §301 et seq.), a key component of Roosevelt's New Deal. Passed by the U.S. Congress in 1935, the act allowed qualified workers in commerce and industry to collect old-age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits. The new program required employers and employees to make contributions to a federal pension fund for aged and disabled persons. In this way, workers and their families were financially protected in the event of unemployment, old age, or the death of a wage earner. Although critics likened the plan to socialism, Social Security became a successful federal entitlement program.

Perkins also helped develop the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C.A. §201 et seq.), which limited the number of hours employees could work for minimum wage. The law also placed restrictions on child labor. It prohibited children under sixteen years of age from working in most jobs, and made hazardous occupations unavailable to workers under eighteen years of age. The Wage and Hour Division of the Department of Labor was also established by the act.

After Roosevelt's death in 1945, Perkins served briefly in the administration of President Harry S. Truman. She left Truman's cabinet to serve on the U.S. Civil Service Commission from 1946 to 1952. Perkins then taught courses at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She died in New York City on May 14, 1965, at the age of eighty-five.

Frances Perkins
4th United States Secretary of Labor
In office March 4, 1933 – June 30, 1945
President	Franklin Delano Roosevelt Harry S. Truman
Preceded by	William N. Doak
Succeeded by	Lewis B. Schwellenbach
Born	April 10, 1880(1880-04-10) Boston, Massachusetts
Died	May 14, 1965 (aged 85) New York
Political party	Democratic
Spouse(s)	Paul Caldwell Wilson
Alma mater	Mount Holyoke College Columbia University

Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Davies, (April 10, 1880^[1] – May 14, 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet who remained in offices for his entire presidency.

During her term as Secretary of Labor, Perkins championed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Public Works Administration and its successor the Federal Works Agency, and the labor portion of the National Industrial Recovery Act. With The Social Security Act she established unemployment benefits, pensions for the many uncovered elderly Americans, and welfare for the poorest Americans. She pushed to reduce workplace accidents and helped craft laws against child labor. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard 40-hour work week. She formed governmental policy for working with labor unions and helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service, Perkins resisted having American women be drafted to serve the military in World War II so that they could enter the civilian workforce in greatly expanded numbers.^[2]

Contents 1 Biography 2 Legacy 3 Personal life 4 Notes 5 References 6 External links

Biography

Perkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Susan Bean Perkins and Frederick W. Perkins, the owner of a stationer's business (both of her parents originally were from Maine).^[3] She spent much of her childhood in Worcester. She was christened Fannie Coralie Perkins, but later changed her name to Frances.^[4]

Perkins attended Worcester's Classical High School and was graduated from Mount Holyoke College with a BA degree in 1902, and from Columbia University with a master's degree in sociology in 1910. In the interim, she held a variety of teaching positions including a position teaching chemistry from 1904-06 at Ferry Hall School, now Lake Forest Academy, in Lake Forest, Illinois. In Chicago, she volunteered at settlement houses, including Hull House.

She achieved statewide prominence as head of the New York Consumers League in 1910 and in that position she lobbied with vigor for better working hours and conditions. The next year, she witnessed the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, a pivotal event in her life.

Frances Perkins married Paul Caldwell Wilson in 1913. She kept her birth name, defending her right to do so in court. Prior to going to Washington D.C., Perkins held various positions in New York State government. In 1918, Perkins accepted Governor Al Smith's offer to join the New York State Industrial Commission, becoming its first female member. She became chairwoman of the commission in 1926.

In 1929 the newly-elected New York governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, appointed Perkins as the state industrial commissioner. Having earned the cooperation and respect of various political factions, Perkins ably helped put New York in the forefront of progressive reform. She expanded factory investigations, reduced the workweek for women to 48 hours, and championed minimum wage and unemployment insurance laws.

In 1933 Roosevelt appointed Perkins as Secretary of the Department of Labor, a position she held for twelve years, longer than any other Secretary of Labor. She became the first woman to hold a cabinet position in the United States and thus, became the first woman to enter the presidential line of succession.

With few exceptions, President Roosevelt consistently supported the goals and programs of Secretary Perkins. In an administration filled with compromise, the president's support for the agenda of Frances Perkins was unusually constant.

Frances Perkins wearing a veil following the death of President Roosevelt.

As Secretary of Labor, Perkins played a key role in the cabinet by writing New Deal legislation, including minimum-wage laws. Her most important contribution, however, came in 1934 as chairwoman of the President's Committee on Economic Security. In this post, she was involved in all aspects of the reports and hearings that ultimately resulted in the Social Security Act of 1935.

In 1939, she came under fire from some members of congress for refusing to deport the Communist head of the west coast International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Harry Bridges. Ultimately, Bridges was vindicated by the Supreme Court.

Al Smith, a machine politician from the old school, was an early social reformer with whom Frances Perkins made common cause. At Smith's funeral in 1944 two of his former Tammany Hall political cronies were overheard to speculate on why Smith had become a social crusader. One of them summed the matter up this way: "I'll tell you. Al Smith read a book. That book was a person, and her name was Frances Perkins. She told him all these things, and he believed her."

Following her tenure as Secretary of Labor, in 1945 Perkins was asked by President Harry Truman to serve on the United States Civil Service Commission, which she did until 1952, when her husband died and she resigned from federal service. During this period, she also published a memoir of her time in FDR's administration called The Roosevelt I Knew, which offered a sympathetic view of the president.

Following her government service career, Perkins remained active as a teacher and lecturer at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University until her death in 1965 at age 85.

The building that is the headquarters of the United States Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. is named in her honor.

Legacy

Frances Perkins, the first female member of the Presidential cabinet, had an unenviable challenge: she had to be as capable, as fearless, as tactful, as politically astute as the other Washington politicians, in order to make it possible for other women to be accepted into the halls of power after her.^[5]

Perkins would have been famous simply by being the first woman cabinet member, but her legacy stems from her accomplishments. She was largely responsible for the U.S. adoption of social security, unemployment insurance, federal laws regulating child labor, and adoption of the federal minimum wage.^[6]

Perkins had a cool personality, which held her aloof from the crowd. Although her results indicate her great love of workers and lower-class groups, her Boston upbringing held her back from mingling freely and exhibiting personal affection. She was well-suited for the high-level efforts to effect sweeping reforms, but never caught the public's eye or its affection.^{[citation needed]}

Personal life

Perkins married Paul Wilson in 1913. The couple had a daughter, Susanna. Both father and daughter were described by biographer Kirstin Downey as having "manic-depressive symptoms."^[7] Wilson was frequently institutionalized for mental illness.^[8]

Notes

1. ^ 1880 U.S. Census. Some references list her birth year as 1882, for reasons unknown
2. ^ Downey, 2009, p. 337.
3. ^ 1880 Census
4. ^ Frances Perkins Collection. Mount Holyoke College Archives [1]
5. ^ The Tennessean, Arts & Entertainment, 8 March 2009, "The Woman Behind the New Deal" (Kirstin Downey). Perkins ... not only had to do more than her male counterparts to prove herself, but she had to do it while dealing with rough-and-tumble labor leaders, a husband in and out of mental institutions, condescending bureaucrats and some Congress members hell-bent on impeaching her. p. 11.
6. ^ http://www.dol.gov/oasam/programs/laborhall/1989_perkins.htm
7. ^ Downey, 2009, p. 380.
8. ^ Downey, 2009, p. 2.

References

• Berg, Gordon. "Frances Perkins and the Flowering of Economic and Social Policies". Monthly Labor Review. 112:6 (June 1989).
• Downey, Kirstin. The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, New York: Nan A. Talese/Doubleday, 2009. ISBN 0385513658.
• Keller, Emily. Frances Perkins: First Woman Cabinet Member. Greensboro: Morgan Reynolds Publishing, 2006. ISBN 978193179891.
• Martin, George Whitney. Madam Secretary: Frances Perkins. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1976. ISBN 0395242932.
• Pasachoff, Naomi. Frances Perkins: Champion of the New Deal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. ISBN 0195122224.
• Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Penguin Group, 1946. ISBN 0670607371.
• Severn, Bill. Frances Perkins: A Member of the Cabinet. New York: Hawthorn Books, Inc., 1976. ISBN 080152816X.

External links

• Frances Perkins Center—A place to honor her memory and carry on her work at her family homestead on the coast of Maine
• The Woman Behind the New Deal—A biography by Kirstin Downey, release date: March 2009
• VIDEO: Kirstin Downey - The Woman Behind the New Deal — lecture by journalist and author, Kirstin Downey, talking about her biography of Frances Perkins, Portland, Oregon, May 18, 2009.
• Vineyard Video—"You May Call Her Madame Secretary" is a film production depicting Frances Perkins' life and her career
• Frances Perkins Collection. Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections
• Mount Holyoke biography
• Frances Perkins Collection. Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University
• Notable New Yorkers - Frances Perkins—Biography, photographs, and interviews of Frances Perkins from the Notable New Yorkers collection of the Oral History Research Office at Columbia University
• Columbians Ahead of Their Time, Frances Perkins biography
• National Women's Hall of Fame
• Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project: Frances Perkins
• U.S. Department of Labor Biography
• "Biographer Chronicles Perkins, 'New Deal' Pioneer", All Things Considered, 28 March 2009. An interview with Kirstin Downey about her biography of Frances Perkins.

Political offices
Preceded by William N. Doak	United States Secretary of Labor Served Under: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman 1933–1945	Succeeded by Lewis B. Schwellenbach

v • d • e United States Secretaries of Labor Secretaries of Commerce & Labor Cortelyou • Metcalf • Straus • Nagel Secretaries of Labor Wilson • Davis • Doak • Perkins • Schwellenbach • Tobin • Durkin • Mitchell • Goldberg • Wirtz • Shultz • Hodgson • Brennan • Dunlop • Usery • Marshall • Donovan • Brock • McLaughlin • Dole • Martin • Reich • Herman • Chao • Solis

v • d • e Cabinet of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–1945) Vice President John Nance Garner (1933–1941) • Henry A. Wallace (1941–1945) • Harry S. Truman (1945) Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1933–1944) • Edward Stettinius, Jr. (1944–1945) Secretary of War George Dern (1933–1936) • Harry Hines Woodring (1936–1940) • Henry L. Stimson (1940–1945) Secretary of the Treasury William Hartman Woodin (1933–1934) • Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1934–1945) Attorney General Homer Stille Cummings (1933–1939) • Frank Murphy (1939–1940) • Robert H. Jackson (1940–1941) • Francis Biddle (1941–1945) Postmaster General James Farley (1933–1940) • Frank Comerford Walker (1940–1945) Secretary of the Navy Claude A. Swanson (1933–1939) • Charles Edison (1940) • Frank Knox (1940–1944) • James Forrestal (1944–1945) Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes (1933–1945) Secretary of the Agriculture Henry A. Wallace (1933–1940) • Claude R. Wickard (1940–1945) Secretary of Commerce Daniel Calhoun Roper (1933–1938) • Harry Hopkins (1939–1940) • Jesse Holman Jones (1940–1945) • Henry A. Wallace (1945) Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (1933–1945)

v • d • e Cabinet of President Harry S. Truman (1945–1953) Vice President None (1945–1949) • Alben W. Barkley (1949–1953) Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. (1945–1945) • James F. Byrnes (1945–1947) • George C. Marshall (1947–1949) • Dean G. Acheson (1949–1953) Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson (1945–1945) • Robert P. Patterson (1945–1947) • Kenneth C. Royall (1947–1947) Secretary of Defense James Forrestal (1947–1949) • Louis A. Johnson (1949–1950) • George C. Marshall (1950–1951) • Robert A. Lovett (1951–1953) Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau, Jr. (1945–1945) • Fred M. Vinson (1945–1946) • John W. Snyder (1946–1953) Attorney General Francis Biddle (1945) • Tom C. Clark (1945–1949) • J. Howard McGrath (1949–1952) • James P. McGranery (1952–1953) Postmaster General Frank C. Walker (1945) • Robert E. Hannegan (1945–1947) • Jesse M. Donaldson (1947–1953) Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal (1945–1947) Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes (1945–1946) • Julius A. Krug (1946–1949) • Oscar L. Chapman (1949–1953) Secretary of the Agriculture Claude R. Wickard (1945) • Clinton P. Anderson (1945–1948) • Charles F. Brannan (1948–1953) Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace (1945–1946) • W. Averell Harriman (1946–1948) • Charles W. Sawyer (1948–1953) Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins (1945) • Lewis B. Schwellenbach (1945–1948) • Maurice J. Tobin (1948–1953)

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