Rebecca Brenner Graham > Quotes

“expert witness in the aftermath of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. NEW YORK CONSUMERS’ LEAGUE. Executive Secretary. 1910–1912. Surveyed businesses and managed a team of volunteers to identify problems and propose regulations. Remained on the Board of Directors following departure. PHILADELPHIA RESEARCH AND PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION. 1907–1909. Found facts regarding the exploitation of women and girls from minority communities and devised solutions to help. HULL HOUSE. VOLUNTEER. 1904–1907. Assisted nurses, political campaigns, research on social problems, and publications, as well as other duties as assigned. FERRY HALL. TEACHER. 1904–1906. Taught chemistry at all-girls college-preparatory school outside Chicago.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. Cabinet Secretary. 1933–1945. First female Cabinet Secretary and longest-serving Labor Secretary in U.S. history. Key architect of New Deal legislation, including social security and the minimum wage. Spearheaded efforts to aid refugees from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1940. STATE OF NEW YORK. Industrial Commissioner. 1929–1933. First female member of the governor’s cabinet in New York. Advised the governor on industrial and labor policies and managed the largest State Labor Department in the U.S. STATE OF NEW YORK. Member of the Industrial Commission. 1919–1921; 1923–1929. Mediated disputes among employers, labor organizers, and union members across the state. NEW YORK STATE FACTORY INVESTIGATING COMMISSION. Chief Investigator. 1912–1915. Executive Secretary of Committee on Safety of the City of New York and New York State Factory Investigating Commission. Investigated factories, lobbied for labor reform legislation, and served as expert”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“administration has determined how to implement immigration legislation. For President Herbert Hoover’s administration from 1929 through 1933, implementing the Immigration Act of 1924 meant rounding up immigrants—disproportionately Mexican people—for deportation. During the Hoover administration, the Labor Department’s “Section 24” officers “indiscriminately raided places where newcomers assembled.” Section 24”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“European power contributed substantially to the start of World War I.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“for a teaching position at Ferry Hall in Lake Forest, Illinois, outside Chicago.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“answer likely would have been either France or Russia. The rise of nationalism within each”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“Fletcher posited that Americans “are apathetic in immigration matters; they are completely occupied with economic problems. Nevertheless, they look to us to protect their rights, and if ships begin to arrive in New York City laden with Jewish immigrants, the predominant Gentile population of the country will claim they have been betrayed through a ‘sleeping’ State Department.”12 While Perkins looked to protect the human rights of vulnerable refugees, top State Department officials sought to protect Americans’ rights not to help.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“Congress. The Immigration Act of 1924 reflected the same widespread isolationist sentiment that five years prior had prevented the U.S. from ratifying the Treaty of Versailles at the end of World War I. From 1919 through World War II, Europe witnessed the rise of Nazism without the U.S. involved in the League of Nations. Isolationism simultaneously kept the U.S. out of European affairs and helped prevent refugees from said European affairs from finding safety. Nearly two decades”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“Places where foreigners congregated, such as lodging houses, were raided.”35 The cruelty was completely legal.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany

“The rise of Nazi Germany struck terror but also unfolded slowly in ways that seemed so unbelievable that not everyone believed it. Antisemitism—while foundational to the Nazi Party from its inception in 1920—veiled itself with economic desperation and German nationalism from the late 1920s through the appointment of Hitler in 1933.”
― Rebecca Brenner Graham, Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany