she is actually at points supporting frances perkins because frances perkins remember has a husband who is institutionalized and for whom she has to provide care, so having wealthy free male friends who would help her allows frances perkins to provide for first her husband who has bipolar disorder, and then for daughter who developed it as well. >> could you tell us a little bit about her parents and their influence on her? >> that is very interesting. the question was can you tell us little bit about frances perkins parents and their influence on her? for frances perkins it is not just your parents, it is also the remarkable grandmother that she had. she was not particularly close to mother although her mother seems to have run the house and it will ordered way but her mother was a more conventional women and had difficulty understanding this very unusual child that she had come a child who actually kind of scared her. her father had initially been very enthusiastic about having such a bright daughter, and you know taught her to read greek. he was an educated man himself. they came fro

frances perkins. she spent 12 years in labor. [laughter] this is how much tourists knew and were informed about what frances perkins had done and you can only imagine how many people on that bus have relatives that were collecting social security checks. maybe they had the free time to be on the tour bus because they were collecting unemployment, and had no idea who had allowed for the creation of those benefits. one of the things that makes frances perkins so extraordinary was the time that she was born that she did this at that particular time. she was born in 1880 in a time of great national transformation. she was descended from revolutionary war patriots and always considered herself a live there. and was very proud of her new england heritage, her stoicism and strength in the face of the diversity. that turned out to be enormously valuable to her when she got to washington. she grew up middle-class. the time she was born in the industrial revolution was in full swing. the gap between rich and poor was growing larger and lar

frances perkins achieved almost all of her agenda. she became the most successful social progress of an american history. how did that happen? >> over the years it's been very difficult to get progress of legislation passed in the united states like the kind they have in europe. there are many obstacles. frances perkins was one of these people from a very young age found a path through obstacles and a way to get things done. coming here as i first came to washington, d.c. in 1988 as a reporter for "the washington post" and i didn't know who frances perkins was myself and i took a tour of the sites of d.c. and one of the things that stuck in my mind is this huge labor department building named after frances perkins and i thought there are not that many government buildings named after women so i sort of stored away in my mind and in a little while as we continue in the trip along the mall tour bus driver said he had a joke and it was one american woman had the worst child birth experience? a long pause, frances perkins. she spent 12 ye