Women of the New Deal

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Women of the New Deal

When Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was inaugurated as president in March 1933, the United States was at the depth of the Great Depression, the most severe economic downturn the nation had ever experienced. Almost immediately President Roosevelt and his advisers presented Congress with a series of programs designed to bring relief, recovery, and reform to the nation's ailing economy. Together these programs became known as the New Deal. As the New Deal legislation passed through Congress, many new government agencies were established to carry out the relief programs. In order to accomplish their goals, these agencies needed experienced relief workers. In America the most experienced relief workers were those trained in social work; and most trained social workers were women. Hence the New Deal agencies brought a wealth of new opportunities for these women, who were highly qualified to deal with the problems of the Great Depression. By the end of 1933 thirty-five women had received appointments to prominent government positions. By the end of the decade, fifty-five women held key positions in government.

A few women had played active roles in government before the 1930s. Since 1921 Grace Abbott (1878–1939) had served as chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor. Mary Anderson had led that same department's Women's Bureau since 1920. Women had won the right to vote in 1920, and several women were elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1920s. However, with the New Deal appointments of women in the 1930s, a new attitude toward women in government began to emerge. This attitude, held by growing numbers of people, was that more women belonged in political circles where they could offer perspectives on social issues not commonly heard before. From Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first woman cabinet member, to Hallie Flanagan, the determined director of the Federal Theater Project, women began to make their mark in the U.S. federal government. The early appointments of women to New Deal agency posts were attributed in part to President Roosevelt's desire to break new ground; in part to the influence of his wife, Eleanor; and in large part to the vigorous work of Molly Dewson, chairperson of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Convention.

Molly Dewson and the rainbow flyers

In early 1932 Molly Dewson (1874–1962) began a concerted effort to rally women voters behind Franklin Roosevelt's campaign for the presidency. Working with other women Democratic leaders (such as Emily Newell Blair and Sue Shelton White), Dewson's division of the Democratic National Convention strengthened and further organized an already growing network of Democratic women. Each state had a vice-chair and local correspondents who were responsible for distribution of political literature. During the state-by-state struggle for women's suffrage (women's right to vote), a brightly colored, single sheet of facts called a "rainbow flyer" had been delivered door-to-door. A similar flyer went to over six million households across the country during Roosevelt's presidential campaign. The grassroots efforts succeeded in establishing a nationwide women's political network.

After Franklin Roosevelt's election to the presidency, Dewson, Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), and other Democratic leaders such as Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876–1977) and Sue Shelton White met to compile a list of women they believed would serve the government well. Dewson's goal was to recognize at least one woman Democratic leader in each state. Yet Dewson did not want to merely place women in various public offices; she wanted to place the best candidates available into the jobs.

The Reporter Plan

Molly Dewson, always eager to nurture grassroots support for New Deal programs, established the Reporter Plan in 1934. Still working as the chairperson of the Women's Division of the Democratic National Convention (DNC), Dewson sought to involve more women in the New Deal government programs by educating them on related political issues and on the benefit of New Deal projects. Tapping the existing network of Democratic women, the Reporter Plan called for a select number of women in each county Democratic organization to monitor the progress of a government agency. These women would then report their findings to community clubs and other organizations, in effect serving as local reporters and public information sources.

The Reporter Plan program was based on the belief that by providing women in all walks of life more detailed information on the administration's activities, women voters could play a crucial role in the reelection of Roosevelt in 1936. Five thousand women had signed up to be reporters by the summer of 1934, fifteen thousand by 1936, and thirty thousand by 1940. To engage even more women in New Deal political discussions, the DNC's Women's Division sponsored nationwide conferences on politics, government, and education. Frances Perkins and Ellen Woodward were among the women who spoke at the conferences.

Frances Perkins, secretary of labor

Considerably before Roosevelt's inauguration in March 1933, Dewson began to lobby Roosevelt to appoint Frances Perkins (1882–1965) as secretary of labor. Roosevelt did not need much persuasion, because he had worked extensively with Perkins when he was serving as governor of New York (1929–33). In New York Perkins had been, among other positions, Roosevelt's industrial commissioner. Thus Perkins fit the bill: She was not only a woman but also the best-suited person in the country to take over the U.S. Department of Labor, the most recently established department in the president's cabinet. It was actually harder to convince Perkins to take the job than it was to convince Roosevelt to ask her. Dewson met with Perkins to encourage her, but Perkins accepted only after meeting with Roosevelt. During a lengthy discussion with president-elect Roosevelt, Perkins outlined the programs she would fight for, including child labor laws, social insurance programs, minimum wages, and maximum hours. Only when she was convinced that she would have the president's support on these matters did Perkins accept. Hence Perkins became the first woman in the history of the United States to serve as a member of the president's cabinet. In accepting the position she expressed the pride she felt in representing all American women in that historic moment.

Early in her term as secretary of labor, Perkins successfully directed the placement of young men into the Civilian Conservation Corps, a program Roosevelt established in April 1933 to provide work for young men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. By early 1934 Perkins was lobbying for social insurance programs such as workers' compensation (monthly cash payments to those injured on the job), unemployment insurance (temporary monthly cash payments to those who have lost their jobs), and an old-age retirement plan. These efforts resulted in the Social Security Act of 1935, signed into law by President Roosevelt in August 1935. He credited Perkins with developing and guiding the legislation through to its passage. In 1938 Perkins paved the way for the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Included in this act were minimum hourly wages and maximum weekly hours.

With the exception of Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes (1874–1952), Perkins was Roosevelt's longest-serving cabinet member, remaining at her post from 1933 until shortly after Roosevelt's death in 1945. Perkins remained friends with Dewson, and years later she still recalled how Dewson's encouragement helped bring about her acceptance of the cabinet position. Throughout her term as secretary of labor, Perkins was remarkably successful at developing solutions that would protect the rights of workers while promoting economic recovery from the Great Depression.

Women in government

By 1939, 19 percent of government employees were women, 5 percent more than ten years earlier. The women's rate of federal employment was increasing twice as fast as the men's, but it was doing so only in specific areas of government—in the new federal agencies providing work relief and social security programs. For example, the Works Progress Administration (WPA), created in 1935 to provide jobs for those still out of work, had a woman administrator, Ellen Sullivan Woodward (1887–1971), who served as head of the Women's and Professional Projects Division of the WPA. Woodward oversaw the work of 450,000 women on work relief projects such as sewing, library work, public health programs, educational programs, and research services. Dewson had recommended Woodward to the WPA's head, Harry Hopkins (1890–1946), and considered the appointment one of her proudest achievements.

Dewson also played a hand in Nellie Tayloe Ross's appointment as the first woman director of the U.S. Mint. Another first for women was Ruth Bryan Owen's (1885–1954) appointment as minister to Denmark, a political position just below that of ambassador. Through her political network Dewson frequently organized letter-writing campaigns to push for certain appointments. As a result of one of these campaigns, Florence Allen (1884–1966) was named to the U.S. circuit court of appeals, the highest position a woman had ever held in the federal judicial (legal) system. Although Dewson always downplayed her personal responsibility for placing these and other women in their New Deal positions, her perseverance and close relationship with the Roosevelts certainly contributed to the number of women in New Deal programs. Dewson and Eleanor Roosevelt agreed that women's energy and idealism would bring out the humanitarian side of government, its growing concern for the welfare of human beings. The concept of the federal government caring for its citizens' well-being first emerged in the United States in the 1930s, in response to the extreme hardships brought on by the Great Depression.

Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) became the first black American woman to head a federal agency. She was appointed as Negro Affairs director for the National Youth Administration (NYA) in 1936. The NYA was designed to meet the educational and employment needs of America's youths. Bethune successfully oversaw the administration of funds for black schools and educational programs. From 1935 to 1944 she also held the title of Special Advisor on Minority Affairs. She was the unofficial leader of Roosevelt's "Black Cabinet," various black federal officials who served as an informal advisory group to the president.

Hallie Flanagan (1890–1969) was another prominent woman in the New Deal. She headed the Federal Theater Project (FTP), a project within the Works Progress Administration. The FTP provided work relief for those who had been employed in theater production before the economic crisis of the Great Depression eliminated most of their jobs. The FTP was highly controversial from the start: Many people argued that it was ridiculous to spend public funds to employ actors and artists. Nevertheless, Flanagan developed the program with determination, and the FTP eventually employed more than twelve thousand actors, directors, set artists, stage-hands, and others in over twenty-eight states. Collectively they staged productions in more than 105 theaters. Many productions were free to the public, and, because of this, many Americans got their first introduction to live plays and musicals.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962), the wife of President Franklin Roosevelt, was a woman of great energy who had wide-ranging interests. During the 1920s Eleanor had joined and participated in many groups, including the League of Women Voters and the Women's Trade Union League (WTUL), as well as the National Consumers' League, where she worked with Molly Dewson. While her husband was governor of New York (1929–33), Eleanor was highly active in the Democratic State Committee; she also continued participating in the WTUL, published articles, and became an accomplished public speaker on social reform. When Franklin Roosevelt ran for president in 1932, Eleanor worked hand in hand with Dewson in the Women's Division of the Democratic National Convention. As First Lady, Eleanor, a reformer and women's rights advocate, worked with Dewson to see that many women were placed in government posts, and beginning on March 6, 1933, she started holding weekly women-only press conferences. From 1933 to 1945 she held over five hundred of these conferences for women journalists in the hopes of opening journalism jobs for women and giving women a better understanding of legislative and political life. In 1936 Eleanor began to write a newspaper column, "My Day," commenting on current issues.

Eleanor used her position to advance a number of causes, including the rights of women and improvement of working conditions, and she attended to issues of unemployed women. She championed miners' rights and the rights of black Americans. In 1939 she resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution after black American singer Marian Anderson (1897–1993) was denied use of their performance hall. She then helped arrange an outdoor concert for Anderson at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. Over seventy-five thousand men and women came to listen to the concert.

Lorena Hickok, investigator of the Depression

One of Eleanor Roosevelt's closest friends was Lorena Hickok (1893–1968), often known as Hick. She was a journalist and one of the first women to work for the Associated Press. A hard-hitting newswoman, she was assigned to cover Eleanor Roosevelt on the 1932 campaign trail. A close friendship developed between the two women, and Hickok soon became a part of the New Deal administration.

Soon after his inauguration in 1933, President Roosevelt established the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA) to get immediate relief to desperate Americans, who were struggling to survive the economic crisis known as the Great Depression. Roosevelt placed Harry Hopkins (1890–1946) in charge of FERA. Hopkins in turn hired Lore-na Hickok away from the Associated Press to be his chief investigator. Rather than having Hickok compile more statistics, Hopkins asked her to travel the nation and report to him the conditions she found firsthand. From the summer of 1933 until the end of 1936, Hickok went into the most afflicted areas of the country and reported back to Hopkins. During her tour she met with politicians, civil leaders, and officials from state and local relief programs, to find out how well the New Deal programs were running. She frequently was sent to investigate communities in crisis, whether from labor problems or natural disasters. Likewise, she checked up on localities where Hopkins had reason to suspect New Deal programs were being unfairly administered. The information Hickok provided to Hopkins helped him improve coordination between Washington, D.C., and local relief officials.

Discrimination against women in government

In the eyes of politically active women, one black mark on Roosevelt's New Deal administration was Roosevelt's continuation of Section 213 of the Economy Act, originally signed into law by President Herbert Hoover (1874–1964; served 1929–33) near the end of 1932. The section, which Molly Dewson referred to as "that dumb clause," stipulated that married persons could not be employed by the federal government at the same time. Over sixteen hundred federally employed married couples were affected by this legislation, and although the act did not state that wives should be the first to resign, the majority of people who did resign (or who were fired) were women. In May 1933 women's organizations demanded that Section 213 be voided. However, President Roosevelt was not eager to change the law since it had a lot of public support. Many people believed women working outside the home took jobs away from men who desperately needed work during the Depression. Also, many Americans thought women working outside the home weakened the family unit. When the U.S. attorney general advised Roosevelt that he could not legally void the law, the president found this a politically convenient position to be in since it would not alienate the majority of voters even though the law obviously discriminated against women. The only opposition to the law from the White House came from Eleanor Roosevelt. She believed that the decision for a woman to work outside the home should rest with the family, not Congress. Section 213 was finally repealed in July 1937 with the passage of the Celler bill, which prohibited discrimination based on marital status. The bill bore the name of Congressman Emmanuel Celler of New York who, along with representatives from various woman's organizations, had fought for several years for Section 213's repeal.

There were other instances of discrimination against women, even within the New Deal itself. For example, the

More Women of the New Deal

Grace Abbott (1878–1939): Chief of the Children's Bureau in the Labor Department; active in Women's Trade Union League (WTUL) and National Consumers' League; took position in 1934 at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and contributed heavily to provisions for mothers' and children's programs in the Social Security Act of 1935.

Clara Mortenson Beyer: Associate director of the Division of Labor Standards within the Department of Labor from 1934 to 1957.

Emily Newell Blair: Prominent woman in the Democratic Party; joined the Consumers' Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) in 1933 and briefly chaired the board in 1935 until the act that established the NRA was declared unconstitutional.

Jane Margueretta Hoey: Director of the Bureau of Public Assistance in the Social Security Administration from 1936 to 1953.

Katherine Fredrica Lenroot: Succeeded Grace Abbott as chief of the Children's Bureau in the Department of Labor in 1934; coauthored the section of the Social Security Act that created the Aid to Dependent Children Program; suggested a legal strategy to enforce child labor regulations that was incorporated into the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.

Josephine Roche: First woman appointed as assistant secretary of the treasury (1934), where she was in charge of the Public Health Service; served as chairperson of the Executive Committee of the National Youth Administration (NYA).

Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876–1977): First woman appointed as director of the U.S. Mint (1933), where she remained until retirement in 1953 before appointment at the mint, Ross was a national figure in the Democratic Party's women's activities and had served as governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927.

Rose Schneiderman: The only woman member of the Labor Advisory Board of the National Recovery Administration (NRA); after serving in the NRA post, Schneiderman continued her earlier work for the Women's Trade Union League and served as the New York secretary of labor from 1937 to 1943.

Sue Shelton White: Attorney who held a variety of positions, including ones with the Women's Division of the Democratic National Convention, the Consumers' Division of the National Recovery Administration, and the Social Security Board. By 1938 she was special assistant to the Social Security Board's legal staff.

National Recovery Administration (NRA) codes established minimum wages for men and women, but in practice, wages for women workers could remain considerably lower than those for men. This type of inequality greatly angered many women's groups. Relief measures that provided help to mothers received widespread support, yet there was little agreement (even among women's organizations) on how to achieve equal economic opportunities for women.

Women's progress in government slows

As the 1930s came to a close, the shadow of World War II (1939–45) loomed over Europe and America, and women's progress in U.S. government slowed. Many New Deal programs were being reduced or eliminated as the government switched its focus from domestic issues to the growing conflict in Europe. These programs had provided the greatest opportunities for women, so decreases in funding could only mean decreased opportunity. Molly Dewson had retired, and Eleanor Roosevelt had turned her attention to international concerns. By 1940 women's politics in the United States went into a holding pattern that lasted for the next two decades.

For More Information

Books

black, allida m., ed. courage in a dangerous world: the political writings of eleanor roosevelt. new york, ny: columbia university press, 1999.

costin, lela b. two sisters for social justice: a biography of grace and edith abbott. urbana: university of illinois press, 1983.

evans, sara m. born for liberty: a history of women in america. new york, ny: free press, 1989.

lowitt, richard, and maurine beasley, eds. one third of a nation: lorena hickok reports on the great depression. urbana: university of illinois press, 2000.

mccluskey, audrey thomas, and elaine m. smith, eds. mary mcleod bethune: building a better world, essays and selected documents. bloomington: indiana university press, 1999.

mohr, lillian holmen. frances perkins: that woman in fdr's cabinet. croton-on-hudson, ny: north river press, 1979.

roosevelt, eleanor. the autobiography of eleanor roosevelt. new york, ny: harper & brothers publishers, 1958.

scharf, lois. to work and to wed: female employment, feminism, and the great depression. westport, ct: greenwood press, 1980.

ware, susan. beyond suffrage: women in the new deal. cambridge, ma: harvard university press, 1981.

ware, susan. holding their own: american women in the 1930s. boston: twayne publishers, 1982.

ware, susan. partner and i: molly dewson, feminism, and new deal politics. new haven, ct: yale university press, 1987.