It was February, 1933. Franklin Roosevelt had recently been elected President of the United States. A woman with whom he had worked, and whom he had known for over 20 years, was coming to see him at his home in Hyde Park, New York, a lavish Italianate mansion which he had remodelled in colonial revival style. Roosevelt drove Frances Perkins around the Hyde Park estate in his hand-operated automobile – necessary because of the damage polio had inflicted on him. He pointed out the new trees and other improvements, of which he was very proud, and they discussed the grave industrial and social problems of the US and what might be done to solve them. She knew that he wanted her to be his new Secretary of Labor, the first female member of a presidential cabinet, but he didn’t know just what she intended to accomplish in such an important political position. She told him. The package included unemployment insurance, old age insurance and health insurance. ‘I remember he looked so startled, and he said, “Well, do you think it can be done?”’ She told him she didn’t know, but she wanted to try. She wanted his authorization. He gave it. She could try. And that was how it all began.

In so far as the US has ever had a welfare state, most of the credit for its federal legislative origins should go to Frances Perkins. She served as Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, during all four of Franklin Roosevelt’s administrations, and was directly behind most of the social legislation associated with what is known as ‘the New Deal’ era in the US. Behind her were the achievements of many of the women reformers who appear in this book. Through her, the sociology of Settlement women that emphasized the need for evidence-based federal government action to promote social justice came to inform government values and policies. But, while we remember Franklin Roosevelt, most of us have never heard of Frances Perkins: her role as the principal architect of the New Deal is missing from most histories of that time. Because we don’t know who she was or what she did, we are also excluded from knowing about the history that connects her to the transnational networks of women reformers who developed the tools of social science and a shared commitment to a just public policy.