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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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her Miss Jay. That was her name. It still is to this day. Most people here at the Civil Service Commission call her Miss Jay. I'm not positive when she came to work for the Labor Department, but she did not work for me in my first term as a member of the Industrial Commission (1919--1921). I had another stenographer whom I had inherited from my predecessor who was very good and who was very useful because she knew the procedures in workmen's compensation cases.

When I came back in the Department as a member of the Industrial Board in 1923 this other girl had been transferred somewhere else and wasn't immediately available for me. I asked the Secretary who would be good. He sent me three or four people and finally said, “There's a girl in my office who's quite young, but she's very smart. She's just as smart as she can be, but she hasn't been around as long as the others. She wants terribly to make an application to come to your office. If you don't mind, I'll send her up.”

He sent her up and it was Miss Jay. She was younger than most of them were, but what she had to say about herself, her ideas and what she liked to do impressed me and I took her. The Secretary had vouched for her skill as a stenographer. I thought she'd make a good secretary. I wanted somebody who would meet the public with great kindness,





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