ON THE PASSING OF TOMLIN PERKINS COGGESHALL
Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall dedicated himself to increasing public awareness of the remarkable career and contributions of his grandmother, Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor. The first woman cabinet member. Secretary Perkins served the entire twelve years of the Franklin Roosevelt presidency.
Coincidentally, two presidents provided major public recognition of Secretary Perkins as a strong advocate of social justice and economic security for all Americans. The events were forty-five years apart. Tomlin was present on both occasions.
On his grandmother’s 100th birthday, April 10, 1980, twenty-five year old Tomlin was on the stage with his mother, Susanna Wilson Coggeshall, when President Jimmy Carter named the Department of Labor Building for Frances Perkins. Only when he heard “Hail to the Chief” did Tomlin realize the significance of this recognition of his grandmother. President Carter explained that “In her life Frances Perkins saw our Nation transformed from official indifference to one which was mobilized to fight for and to cherish the rights of American working people, the well-being of the poor and the elderly, individual human rights and world peace. She was witness to momentous change, and she was a prime agent of that change. She helped to carry out a remarkable revolution, a revolution which did not abolish our institutions or our way of government; instead, she noted, it was a revolution of change in habits—our habits of thought and our habits of acting.”
Until this event, Tomlin had little appreciation for his grandmother’s significant influence on America’s changed way of life under the New Deal. Studying her history and legacy, Tomlin also considered his own responsibility to preserve the ancestral Homestead in Newcastle, Maine, which had been in the Perkins family since 1750. He brought together a group of friends which led to the creation of the Frances Perkins Center. In its fifteen years, it has both preserved the Homestead and fostered programs and activities that have brought renewed national attention to the remarkable public legacy of Frances Perkins. That legacy Includes her authorship of Social Security.
On December 16, 2024, Tomlin sat next to President Joe Biden as he signed a proclamation naming the Frances Perkins Homestead a National Monument. President Biden referred to Secretary Perkins’ devotion to working people, seeking to protect their chances to access the American dream. He also recognized Tomlin, sitting in a wheel chair, who, as it turned out, was just weeks away from his death on January 7, 2025. The attention to the new National Monument in Newcastle, Maine, came as the nation is considering both the career of President Carter, following his death on December 29, 2024, and the commitments of the outgoing President Biden to the New Deal legacy of which Frances Perkins was a key architect. When shown a photo of himself with President Biden and his beloved husband, Christopher Rice, on one of the last days when he was conscious, Tomlin exclaimed “Wow.”
Christopher N. Breiseth, January 19, 2025
