Frances Perkins: A Woman’s Work with Jarice Hanson

The Greenfield Public Library welcomes Jarice Hanson with the one-woman show “Frances Perkins: A Woman’s Work” on Friday, October 2 at 2:30pm in the library’s Community Meeting Room. In this show, Hanson tells the story of the first woman to hold a Cabinet position —Secretary of Labor Perkins, whose sacrifices and leadership ushered in a range of progressive social reforms in the first half of the 20 th Century and who overcame the burden of being “the first” woman in the U.S. government from the Depression, the New Deal era, through WWII. As the primary architect of the New Deal legislation, Perkins gave us Social Security, the 40 hour work week, a minimum wage, child labor laws, and more.

Jarice Hanson is a Professor Emerita of Communication at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. She is also a member of Actors’ Equity (AEA) and the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG- AFTRA). In addition to her scholarly research, she has written documentaries and hosted/produced public television programs at WGBY (Springfield, MA) and WHYY (Philadelphia). Dr. Hanson has a Ph.D. in Media and Technology Studies from Northwestern University. While teaching at UMASS – Amherst in the Department of Communication, she authored several books and journal articles, including the popular series Clashing Views on Contemporary Topics in Media and Society (With Alison Alexander); 24/7: How Cell Phones Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play, and The Economic Encyclopedia of Social Media (and others).

This program is funded by a grant from the Greenfield Cultural Council, a local agency which is supported by the Mass Cultural Council, a state agency.