It’s a cool, September evening and a crowd had gathered in Newcastle to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Social Security, the landmark federal program that has offered a critical safety net to generations of Americans.
But the event, held beneath the post-and-beam timbers of a historic barn located on one of the country’s newest national monuments, was as much a celebration of the woman behind Social Security: Frances Perkins.
“You’ll hear it said that FDR was the author, and like every elected official, he gets the credit, “ said Jim Roosevelt, the grandson of former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, or FDR. “But she was the author who pushed for it, for the strong components of Social Security. Pushed him, pushed the Congress.”
Perkins served as FDR’s secretary of labor through 12 tumultuous years, beginning during the depths of the Great Depression and continuing until his death near the end of World War II. She was the nation’s first female Cabinet secretary. Yet it was Perkins’ central role in many of FDR’s historic New Deal reforms that prompted President Joe Biden to designate this New England farmstead as the Frances Perkins National Monument last December.
Perkins is credited with playing a leading role in not only the creation of Social Security but also the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, the 40-hour workweek, bans on child labor and workplace safety standards, among other New Deal reforms.
“I always call her the most influential American that almost nobody knows about,” said Keith Mestrich, board chair of the Frances Perkins Center, the nonprofit which donated this barn and farmhouse to the National Park Service last year for the monument. “And this presence, this place is that opportunity for us to honor her legacy and to celebrate it every day.”
During the monument’s inaugural season, more than 4,000 people visited the two barns housing displays for Perkins and a welcome center and displays for Perkins before they closed for the year on Sept. 28. The main farmhouse on the property, known simply as the “brick house,” is not yet open to the public but will be eventually.
That’s more than triple the number who visited the site last year before the monument designation. And thousands more have walked the miles of trails that cut through the 50-plus acres of woods, meadows and riverfront that surround the national monument site.
Mestrich said that when the monument was designated by Biden nine months ago, it was hoped that it would also receive more federal support — and money. But that hasn’t happened … yet.
“Now we’re a little bit lucky: We didn’t have anything, so nothing’s been taken away from us,” Mestrich said to laughs from the crowd, many of whom were donors or volunteers with the center. “We are 100% dedicated to make sure that this place, which is now the property and the owner, under the ownership of the United States government continues to operate, continues to be open.”
A National Park Service project manager does meet regularly with Perkin Center staff, who run day-to-day operations at the site as the official philanthropic partner for the monument. And the center’s executive director, Amanda Hatch, said that partnership has been critical in raising awareness of the site during this first year.
“We are on the National Park Service website,” Hatch said several days later while seated inside the brick farmhouse that is part of the new national monument. “We are on their app. So folks who are really plugged into the NPS scene are now finding us in a way that they wouldn’t necessarily know that we were here otherwise. We’re not on the Main Street in midcoast Maine.”
The focal point of the monument is this 1837 brick farmhouse with its large fireplaces, a built-in bread oven, wide pineboard floors and wainscotting on the walls. Like many old farmhouses in Maine, there’s a narrow passage that allows access to the two connected barns without having to step outside into the elements.
Perkins never actually lived here but her connection to the homestead was cemented over many childhood summers spent with her grandparents.
Perkins’ grandmother was one of the most important, if not the most important, person in her life,” Hatch said. “She credits her with really instilling the values in her that helped carry forward her work throughout her life. So I think that’s part of the reason that this place was so important to her because it was connected to her grandmother.”
Perkins would regularly return to this spot along the Damariscotta River for the rest of her life. She’s also buried a half-mile away.
It was where she came to shut down and recharge while running a major federal agency and shepherding the New Deal agenda through an almost all-male Congress. Hatch said Perkins would sometimes spend her first week back in Maine in bed, recuperating.
“Her professional diary in D.C., the entire month of August would just be blank,” Hatch said. “People didn’t need to know where she was going. This was a place that was very personal and private to her.”
The Frances Perkins Center acquired the house and much of its contents in 2020 from Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, who was instrumental in preserving his grandmother’s legacy before his death in January.
Much of the furniture inside the house belonged to Perkins, as did the stacks of books, the mementos from her years at FDR’s side and the countless knick knacks of everyday life.
“There’s something almost magical when you’re inside the house and you feel the power of her presence,” said Kirsten Downey, a former longtime Washington Post reporter whose 2009 biography of Perkins, “The Woman Behind the New Deal,” is often credited with reviving awareness of the workers’ rights pioneer.
“You feel her there inside, you feel what the power of idealism can do to make great things in America,” Downey said. “That homestead should be open to the public.”
The house is not yet open to the public because center staff are still researching and archiving its contents. Because it is now a federal property, the house will also have to meet National Park Service standards for public access. But Hatch said she hopes the brick house will be open to small-group guided tours at least on a limited basis next year.
Biden created this and several other monuments last year as part of an effort to increase representation of women in national parks and historic sites. But priorities in DC have since changed.
President Donald Trump has systematically rolled back or defunded federal programs tied to “diversity, equity and inclusion,” or DEI. In May, the administration proposed cutting the National Park Service’s operations budget by $900 million, or nearly one-third. Congressional appropriators have scaled back that figure, but it is unclear where the House and Senate will land during upcoming budget negotiations.
Apart from the initial lack of funding, Hatch said her center’s partnership with the National Park Services has been “very solid and very clear since the beginning.”
“We are confident that we are a part of the national park system now as a national monument,” she said. “And we’re just going to continue to work in partnership to make that the most meaningful experience for visitors in the meantime.”
But during a telephone interview, Downey said she’s disappointed that neither Maine’s influential congressional delegation nor the park service have secured money for it — yet. Republican U.S. Sen. Susan Collins chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and Democratic U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree serves on the House Appropriations Committee.
“The National Park Service needs to step up to the plate and find the funding to make this a place that’s available for people in Maine, and America generally, to go and visit,” Downey said.
As of last week, funding for the monument was not included in the House or Senate versions of the Interior Department budget for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Congressional budget-writers are expected to resume work on the full-year budget whenever the federal government reopens.
This story appears through a media partnership with Maine Public.
