Fireside Chat with Rebecca Brenner Graham | Dear Miss Perkins

In honor of Women's History Month, Fireside Chats host Paul Sparrow converses with Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham, author of Dear Miss Perkins: A Story of Frances Perkins's Efforts to Aid Refugees from Nazi Germany. This outstanding, inspiring new narrative of the first woman to serve in a president’s cabinet, reveals the full, never-before-told story of her role in saving Jewish refugees during the Nazi regime. This event is co-sponsored by Seaside Jewish Community.

Perkins was the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, the longest-serving labor secretary, and an architect of the New Deal. Yet beyond these celebrated accomplishments, there is another dimension to Frances Perkins’s story. Without fanfare, and despite powerful opposition, Perkins helped save the lives of countless Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany. As Hitler rose to power, thousands of German-Jewish refugees and their loved ones reached out to the INS—then part of the Labor Department—applying for immigration to the United States, writing letters that began “Dear Miss Perkins…” Perkins’s early experiences working in Chicago’s famed Hull House, and as a firsthand witness to the horrific Triangle Shirtwaist fire, shaped her determination to advocate for immigrants and refugees. As Secretary of Labor, she wrestled with widespread antisemitism and isolationism, finding creative ways to work around quotas and restrictive immigration laws. Diligent, resilient, empathetic, yet steadfast, she persisted on behalf of the desperate when others refused to act.

Dr. Rebecca Brenner Graham is a postdoctoral research associate at Brown University. Previously, she taught at the American University in Washington, DC, where she also received her PhD in history and an MA in public history. She also holds a BA in history and philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. In 2023, she was awarded a Cokie Roberts Fellowship from the National Archives Foundation and a Rubenstein Center Research Fellowship from the White House Historical Association.

The Fireside Chat series is moderated by Paul Sparrow, a writer, historical consultant, and the former Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. Before moving to the FDR Library, he was the Deputy Director and Senior Vice President at the Newseum in Washington, DC. He is the author of the book, Awakening the Spirit of America: FDR's War of Words With Charles Lindbergh—and the Battle to Save Democracy.