Maine AFL-CIO Urges Biden Administration to Make Frances Perkins Homestead a National Monument
The Maine AFL-CIO joined political leaders, community groups and historians on August 15 at the Frances Perkins Homestead in Newcastle to urge the Biden administration to designate the National Historic Landmark as a national 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 that women have made in our country with the goal of protecting them through an Antiquities Act Designation, which would make them national monuments.
PHOTO: Secretary Deb Halaand speaks at a round table with Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, legislative leaders & a representative from the Maine AFL-CIO.
US Department of Interior Secretary Deb Halaand was in attendance to take testimonies on the proposal from a range voices that included Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Senate President Troy Jackson, House Speaker Rachel Talbot Ross, Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, Maine AFL-CIO Communications Director Andy O'Brien, historian Heather Cox Richardson and Perkins’ grandson Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall. The Perkins Homestead is ancestral home of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, who was instrumental in creating the Social Security Act and the 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.
At the event, we spoke about the highly equal society Frances Perkins was born into where children were forced to toil in factories and mills, workplace injuries and deaths were common and workers were paid poverty wages for backbreaking labor from sun up to sun down. 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. We fully support this effort to turn her home into a national monument to honor and preserve her memory for generations of working people to come.