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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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take an interest in civic committees. Her children were all little and very absorbing and demanding. A big family makes a great demand upon a woman. She was pretty young and I should say not fully informed. She was interested.

Previous to their coming down to Washington she had done some volunteer work for the Consumers' League. In those days the Junior League was just getting formed. Mary Harriman Rumsey was really the moving spirit in it. She formed it and got the others around. Her idea was that young women, who came of very wealthy families and made their debut with a lot of noise, flowers and so forth, ought really to be doing something for their community. This movement of a group of young women who would agree to do some social work in their early years when they were just “out” was very interesting because it led so many of them into social work. The only social work there was to do was for existing agencies, so that they found themselves wanting to do some social work, offering themselves as volunteers. They filtered into whatever agencies were operating and could use them.

Some of these young women - not very many of them - went into the Consumers' League. Dorothy Whitney did and Eleanor Roosevelt did. I think probably it was a handy thing to do. I'm sure Eleanor Roosevelt knew Mrs. Benjamin Nicoll. Mrs. Nicoll probably said to her, “Now here's a place where





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