1st women Cabinet chief honored

President Carter Thursday dedicated Labor Department headquarters to the late Frances Perkins, the first women ever to serve in a president's cabinet, and renamed it the Frances Perkins Building, honoring the 100th anniversary of her bith.

Miss Perkins served as secretary of labor to President Roosevelt from 1933 to 1945, initiating laws key to the New Deal.

She fostered legislation creating the Social Security Act; the Civilian Conservation Corps and Works Progress Administration, which provided jobs for 10 million people; and the Fair Labor Standard Act, which set minimum-wage, child-labor, and overtime standards.

In 1946 President Truman appointed her to the US Civil Service Commission.

She was born and educated in Boston, and she began work for New York State after witnessing the Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, which killed 146 employees, mostly young women, in New York City in 1911.

In honor of her career, the Postal Service issued a 15-cent stamp bearing a portrait of Miss Perkins wearing her usual beads and hat.