Photo by Alison Russell
By Sarah Grinnell ’26
Books Editor
Content warning: This article discusses antisemitism.
It’s a little known fact that while she was making history as the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, Frances Perkins, Class of 1902, helped save the lives of countless Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.
In her new book, “Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins’s Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany,” Rebecca Brenner Graham ’15 explores this relatively unknown story of one of Mount Holyoke College’s most famous alumni, which she discussed at an in-person event at the Odyssey Bookshop on Thursday, Feb. 13.
The event, which included a short reading followed by a talk, highlighted Graham’s research on Perkins’ work to intervene on behalf of Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in the 1930s; work which, according to Graham, has gone largely unsung. However, in a time of increasing hostility towards migrants in the U.S. from the American government, Perkins’ progressive pro-immigration policy in the early 20th century seems just as relevant today as it was then.
While Perkins is easily regarded as one of Mount Holyoke’s most lauded graduates, Graham explained in an interview with Mount Holyoke News that “she was largely written out of history throughout the 20th century.” In fact, Graham mentioned in her talk that it was only around 2009, with the publication of Kirstin Downey’s “The Woman Behind the New Deal” — as well as more recently with the establishment of the Frances Perkins Homestead as a National Monument last December — that Perkins increasingly grew into “a moral icon on the rise.”
Here at the College, of course, Perkins is a household name. The image of the woman in the tricorn hat has greeted students as they walk down the hallway of the College library. The campus coffee shop, the Frances Perk café, is named after her. And of course — being Frances “Baby” Houseman’s namesake — she indirectly kickstarted the beloved tradition of watching “Dirty Dancing” on the first night of orientation.
“One of my favorite places to learn about her has truly been the Mount Holyoke College Archives,” Graham told the audience at the Odyssey. “I’ve joked to friends that it has the energy of a proud grandmother keeping news clippings of their grandchild.”
Because of this, Graham says that “Dear Miss Perkins” is “fundamentally a Mount Holyoke book.” She began her research on Perkins after an internship opportunity at the Frances Perkins Center, which the College’s Career Development Center presented to her in her junior year. It was there that Graham first learned of “thousands of letters at the National Archives of College Park that Americans had written to Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins on behalf of people trapped in Nazi territory.” These letters would grow into her senior thesis and eventually inspire the title of her book project: “Dear Miss Perkins.” Therefore, Graham emphasized that “the book wouldn’t have happened if both Frances Perkins and I didn’t go to Mount Holyoke.”
As explained by Graham at the event, Perkins’ path did not initially point towards social reform, but her time studying at the College greatly informed her career. Perkins was exposed to the conditions that immigrants and the working poor labored under on a trip to the Holyoke mills as part of her American Economic History class. According to Graham, it was here that Perkins first “[saw] the lives of people who were much less privileged than her. That class made her want to do social work."
As Perkins rose from being a teacher, to a non-profit worker, to her ultimate position as Labor Secretary under Franklin Delano Roosevelt, she witnessed the passage of various immigration policies based in what Graham called “racist pseudoscience,” such as the National Origins Act of 1924. According to Graham, in addition to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 prohibiting Chinese laborers from immigrating to the country, the Immigration Act of 1917 denied those “likely to become a public charge.” She said that during the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover issued an executive order to “adhere strictly” to this public charge clause, which meant denying all entry to most potential immigrants. Graham stated this especially affected Jewish people who lost their livelihoods during the Nazi regime.
It was against this political backdrop that Perkins played an instrumental role advocating for Jewish German refugees and their families, particularly through the use of charge bonds. According to U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services, these bonds function as a “contract” between the federal government and the one paying the sum to pledge that the noncitizen will not become a public charge. Graham explained how Perkins, using legal loopholes in the Immigration Act of 1917, argued that by accepting the bonds on their behalf, she could vouch for those deemed national threats.
While Perkins was ultimately unable to accept the bonds, they transitioned into and provided “essential political leverage” for one of her most crucial contributions: a child refugee policy using visas with affidavits — written statements made under an oath — for young children trapped in Nazi Germany whose parents could no longer support them. According to Graham, this program “saved nearly a thousand children’s lives” and is another initiative for which Perkins has gone unpraised; Graham said, “there were instructions not to cover it in the press.”
The silencing of Perkins’ work, however, does not seem so unthinkable today. In fact, the consistent pushback she faced for her support of refugees — even facing an impeachment resolution, according to Graham — bears uncanny resemblance to the U.S.’s modern relationship with immigration. For example, AP News reported an increase in immigration arrests within just the first weeks of Donald Trump’s second term.
When asked what Americans today could learn from Perkins’ story, Graham stressed a delicate interplay between systemic issues and individual policymakers. As she put it, “the Department of Labor before Perkins used its energy and resources to deport people.” Things thus changed dramatically when “the person in charge of the [Immigration and Naturalization Service] was pro-immigrant.”
“That’s of course different from right now,” Graham continued. “I do think that what’s happening right now in many ways is a story of continuity and consistency with some of the more sinister instincts of Americans across history. I know that’s not a hopeful or uplifting point; I think it’s more of the sobering reality.”
While it is impossible to speculate on what immigration policy might have looked like today had Perkins and her advocacy for refugees not been so understudied, books such as “Dear Miss Perkins” can play a major role in recovering this chapter and understanding the bigger picture of immigration policy in the U.S.
As Graham explained, Perkins “was part of a broader movement of upper middle-class white women at the turn of the 20th century who were interested in using their privilege to make life better for people in need.” By spreading Perkins’ story, perhaps more Americans will find ways to live by her example in the face of intensifying xenophobia in the U.S.
Sofia Ramon ’27 contributed fact-checking.