Becoming Madam Secretary by Stephanie Dray is a novel about Frances Parkins, the first female secretary of labor in the history of the USA, who served under the presidency of president Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S.Truman, between 1933 en 1945.
The book starts when Frances lives in New York City, and is determined to make a difference for the many poor, mostly immigrant workers who work in bad conditions which reaches a terrible point during the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, where many young women perished because of the bad and unsafe working conditions. Frances starts to work for a social welfare organisation in the crowded and dirty tenements of Hell's Kitchen, where many children suffer from malnutrition, which is the topic of the researching of Frances for her thesis. What she sees during her work here leaves a big impression on her and is the backbone for her later political career. In her private life, she starts a relationship with Paul Wilson (and they get a daughter), which starts good, but later on becomes problematic when he starts having psychological problems and is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, something that Frances tries to keep secret because she doesnt't want it to affect her political career, a political career that is becoming more succesfull when she becomes the most trusted secretary of president elect Roosevelt and over the next twenty years, they will form a historic partnership that will carry them both to the White House when Roosevelt is elected for president. But her life is not easy in and out of the White house It was very challenging for a woman back then to work in a work field that is dominated by men and with the struggles to balance the demands of a public career with marriage and motherhood., and she pulls the nation out of the Great Depression together with the president.
Becoming Madam Secretary is a beautiful book. Altough it is fiction about a real historical person, it all feels very realistic. The storyline isn't the most exciting one, but the well crafted fictional biography of the main character, and a great cast of side characters makes up for it. The story is entertaining and keeps you interested to the last page. I never heard about Frances Perkins before but I feel I learned a lot about this prominent figure in American History by reading this book. Her starts in the political fiels where not easy, and her professional relationship with Roosevelt didn’t start out as positive but it became the most important one of her life, and she became the woman who defied societal norms to fight for change in American society. I absoulety love this book about her, and I truly recommend it!!
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