Overview:
Retired UMass professor Jarice Hanson will perform her one-woman play "Frances Perkins: A Woman's Work" at the Athol Public Library on March 18. The play tells the story of Frances Perkins, the first woman to serve as a member of the president's cabinet, who served as Secretary of Labor for 12 years during Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency. Hanson chose Perkins as the topic of her play because she was impressed by Perkins' accomplishments, including the introduction of Social Security, the 40-hour work week, child labor laws, and the idea for the Works Progress Administration.
ATHOL – Retired UMass professor Jarice Hanson is bringing her one-woman play on the life of Frances Perkins to Athol Public Library.
“Frances Perkins: A Woman’s Work,” based on the life of the first woman to ever serve as a member of the president’s cabinet, will take place on Wednesday, March 18, at 5:30 p.m. Perkins served as Secretary of Labor for the 12 years of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, from 1933 to 1945.
Asked why she chose Perkins as the topic of her play, Hanson said, “I had not really heard of Frances Perkins until about five years ago. My niece was going to Mount Holyoke College, and I found out about the Frances Perkins program. At first, I thought maybe she was a big donor. And then I learned she was the first woman to join the cabinet. I thought that was pretty impressive and worth following up on.”
Hanson’s interest in Perkins was piqued even more when she was asked to fill in as narrator at a play being performed in Holyoke.
“During the play, one of the actors talked for about 45 minutes about how ‘Frances Perkins would come down from Mount Holyoke College and observed the working conditions in the factories in Holyoke.’ I looked out the window, and there were the factories, and I thought this is something I have to look into, because she’s a local girl.”
“She touches a lot of things that are so important today.”
Jarice Hanson
Perkins was born in 1880 in Boston. She attended Classical High School in Worcester before earning a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics from Mount Holyoke College.
“Because she has so many ties to both Worcester and to Mount Holyoke,” Hanson explained, “I find there are many people in this area who are really interested in her work.”
Hanson believes her play is particularly relevant in the current political climate.
“There are so many of her programs under attack right now,” she said. “She’s actually known as the driving force behind the New Deal of President Roosevelt. She’s the one who brought us Social Security, the 40-hour work week, child labor laws and so many other things. She also came up with the idea for the WPA (Works Progress Administration), which completed about 5,000 projects in Massachusetts alone.”
Hanson said as labor secretary, Perkins was also in charge of immigration.
“She was very concerned about the rights of, and what could be done for, immigrants who were suffering so badly from the Depression,” Hanson said. “She touches a lot of things that are so important today.”
The retired professor said she developed her play after reading several books about the subject, as well as “The Roosevelt I Knew,” which was written by Perkins and published in 1946, a year after Roosevelt’s death.
“It really summarizes her relationship with FDR,” said Hanson. “She first met him when they were both in their 20s, and she thought he was spoiled and supercilious. And he thought she was a no-nothing busybody.”
The two became friends, Hanson said, during Perkins’ work on the presidential campaign of New York Governor Al Smith in 1928, the same year Roosevelt was elected to succeed Smith as governor.
Perkins, said Hanson, was also pivotal in getting labor organizations to accept the influx of women into the industrial workforce during World War II.
“She, along with the women’s division in the Department of Labor, mounted the ‘Rosie the Riveter’ campaign, and that began to change a lot of attitudes about women in the workplace,” Hanson said.
A release announcing her appearance at the library states, “Hanson was a professor in the Department of Communication at UMass Amherst and has been active in theater in the Valley and beyond for over 30 years. She’s a member of AEA, the professional association for stage actors, and SAG-AFTRA, the union for film and television performers. On stage locally, she has performed at the Majestic Theater, New Century Theater, Pioneer Valley Summer Theater and in a variety of independent productions at the Academy of Music as well as other Valley venues.”
Registration is required for this event, which is suitable for audiences ranging from 10 years old and up. To register, visit https://athol.librarycalendar.com or call (978) 249-9515.