Frances Perkins: The Woman Behind the New Deal

Early Years & Family > Columbia

Columbia University

Registration Book for Frances Perkins

New York, 1907-1911

Frances Perkins Papers Box 140

As a graduate student enrolled in the Masters Program in Political Science, Perkins was required to have her instructors, including E. R. Seligman and J. B. Clark, sign this registration book.

Gift of Susanna Perkins Coggeshall, 1973

Frances Perkins

[Notes for] Fiscal History

Autograph manuscript, pencil, October 1909

Professor Seligman’s Economics 107 survey of the “Fiscal and Industrial History of the United States” began with the colonial period and ended with the Tariff of 1909 and “Present outlook and prospects.” On March 1, 1933, three days before she took office as Secretary of Labor, Seligman sent Perkins his congratulations.

Gift of Susanna Perkins Coggeshall, 1973

 

Edwin R. Seligman

Outline of Lectures on the Fiscal and Industrial History of the United States by Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman

Printed pamphlet, with manuscript notes, 1909

Frances Perkins Papers, Box 121

Gift of Susanna Perkins Coggeshall, 1973

 

Frances Perkins

A Study of Malnutrition in 107 children from Public School 51… Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University

Typescript, carbon, corrected, New York, April 15, 1910

Frances Perkins Papers, Box 121

In the conclusion to her Master’s thesis, Perkins wrote: “The questions involved, in preventing malnutrition, are after all the two which are fundamental to all social reform, the question of increasing wages and the question of making education more widespread. Temporary relief is necessary … but it is after all an expedient to head off malnutrition until society adjusts itself and provides adequate incomes and adequate education to all its workers. The heading off must be done, however, and must be done at once.” Severely cut and with none of the accompanying tables, her thesis was published in The Survey, 1 October 1910, her first published work.

Gift of Susanna Perkins Coggeshall, 1973

 

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