What do we know about Perkins’ politics? And what was her relationship with Roosevelt like?
Perkins and Roosevelt shared both an Episcopalian faith and a Democratic belief in the role of government to help people in need. “I have done what I could in time to make this great country of ours a little nearer our conception of the City of God,” she told Congress in 1939, when members attempted to impeach her for not deporting someone they didn’t like. These shared political and religious values drove their work, even when Roosevelt could not or would not protect Perkins’ initiatives. Perkins did not keep a diary. However, she occasionally left an illegible “note to self” in her papers. For example, after sitting through hearings on a resolution to impeach her in 1939, Perkins scribbled a disconnected set of words: “Integrity.” “Democracy.” “Fair treatment.” “Without oppression.” “Men of conscience.” Those were some of her values.
Dear Miss Perkins traces how immigration law intersected with refugee policy. How did Perkins effect change?
United States law did not define “refugee” until 1980. And existing U.S. immigration law during this period focused on restricting immigration. One of Perkins’ first tasks as labor secretary was to reform immigration practices within her department. She asked Roosevelt for an executive order combining the Immigration Bureau with the Naturalization Bureau to create the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 1933, and he obliged. Then, she worked with the commissioner of immigration and an Ellis Island Committee to humanize the experience of entering the country. Reorganizing the bureaucracy and creating new norms enabled Perkins’ subsequent efforts on behalf of refugees through corporate affidavits, visa extensions and more. In turn, Perkins’ actions helped to secure refuge for tens of thousands of people under restrictive laws.
Tell us about reading the thousands of letters that Jewish refugees sent, seeking federal aid.
Perkins received letters on behalf of refugees from mutual acquaintances she met throughout all stages of her life and career. For example, the journalist Dorothy Thompson wrote to her on behalf of a refugee she knew in Los Angeles. A philanthropist at Hull House, where Perkins had volunteered as a young adult, wrote for help navigating the system to sponsor the immigration of a refugee.
Perkins’ dentist, Eugene Weissmann, wrote her to help his cousin, Endre Varady, who was trapped in Nazi territory with his Jewish family. In Varady’s case, Perkins was unable to intervene because Varady was born in Hungary, and the immigration of his family depended on where he was born according to the National Origins Act of 1924. There was a decade-long waitlist for Hungarian immigrants that only Congress could alter. As a regular businessman, too, Varady did not qualify for a non-quota visa. A reference librarian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum used databases to tell me that Varady and his family survived by immigrating to New Zealand.