The Bookcase: Toby's Discussion Group

Join Bookcase leader Toby Zabinski for a discussion of Becoming Madame Secretary by Stephanie Dray. 

This discussion will be held on Zoom. Registration is required to receive the Zoom link. 

Even before she became Franklin D. Roosevelt's secretary of labor and the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary, Frances Perkins was a tireless advocate for better industrial conditions, an end to child labor, and other social, progressive movements. She had an innate ability to see the humanity in everyone, from a struggling mother to a Tammany Hall politician. Bucking social conventions, she married late and kept her maiden name after her marriage to Paul Wilson. While her marriage had its ups and downs, she remained committed to Paul and supported him and their daughter when his illness rendered him unable to work. It was her professional relationship with FDR, however, that changed the nation. Starting with Frances' graduate work in a halfway house, Dray dramatizes the epic life of this pioneering woman.