First, She Realized There Was a Problem

This article was updated at 3:40 p.m. on October 19, 2019

In a speech in New York City’s Washington Square Park last month, Elizabeth Warren plucked from history a woman who knew injustice when she saw it. Labor secretary to Franklin D. Roosevelt for all 12 years of his presidency, Frances Perkins was the key force behind the most creative and enduring parts of the New Deal—from Social Security to the 40-hour workweek. But Perkins’s career as a workers’ advocate began much earlier. On March 25, 1911, she was drinking tea at a friend’s when a fire broke out behind locked doors at the nearby Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Perkins bolted to the scene, only to witness scores of women workers—Italian and Jewish immigrants, some as young as 14—jumping nine stories to their death. In less than 20 minutes, 146 people died inside the factory or on the sidewalk. Perkins later described that Saturday as the day the New Deal began. In her speech last month, Warren drew inspiration from Perkins, asking, “So what did one woman—one very persistent woman—backed up by millions of people across this country get done? Social Security. Unemployment insurance. Abolition of child labor.