Photo / Courtesy Frances Perkins Homestead
Frances Perkins and dog Balto outside the brick house.
December 16, 2024
Newcastle homestead of worker-rights champion Frances Perkins designated a national monument
Photo / Courtesy Frances Perkins Homestead
The Frances Perkins Homestead in Newcastle has been designated as a national monument.
The former Newcastle home of Frances Perkins, an advocate for workers' rights and the first woman to serve in a presidential cabinet, has been dedicated as a new national monument by President Biden. She died in 1965 at age 85.
Using his executive authority under a law that dates back to 1906, the outgoing Democratic president named the Frances Perkins National Monument as the country’s 433rd national park site, to be managed by the National Park Service.
The achievement marks the culmination of a grassroots campaign led by the nonprofit Frances Perkins Center and the National Parks Conservation Association urging the president to honor President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor secretary with a national monument.
“Frances Perkins’ values have shaped the American workplace. From the 40-hour work week to the minimum wage, to workplace safety and fire prevention, to the abolition of child labor, to the creation of Social Security, Perkins remains one of the most influential women in U.S. history,” said Keith Mestrich, the center’s board chair.
“The Frances Perkins Homestead makes it possible to see and touch history, with significant artifacts from Perkins’ life and times,” he added. ”Under the management of the National Park Service, the homestead will introduce Perkins’ legacy to more people and inspire new generations of leaders who can put their values to work for others.”
Throughout her lifetime, Perkins often lived and found respite at her family’s homestead, a saltwater farm located on the banks of the Damariscotta River.
Settled by her family in the mid-18th century, the homestead consists of a well-preserved 1837 brick house and connected barns on 57 acres within a protected landscape of fields and forest. The land features 2.8 miles of picturesque stone walls along pastures and woodland, and remains of 18th and 19th century home sites. There are also remnants of wharves, clay pits and kilns connected with the family’s 19th-century brick-making business.
Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall, the grandson of Frances Perkins and her living descendant, sold the property to the Frances Perkins Center in 2020. The nonprofit continues to own most of the property, while the National Monument encompasses the homestead, barn and some adjacent land.
The Frances Perkins Center will continue to manage the trails and has plans to build a center to support the work of the monument.
“Frances Perkins made the world a better place, and she learned the values that guided her life at our family’s homestead in Newcastle,” Coggeshall said. "I’m so proud that she is being honored by President Biden and her contribution is being recognized with a national monument.”
More than 5,000 people signed a petition asking Biden to make the designation, and the campaign was supported by Maine leaders including Gov. Janet Mills, Maine's two U.S. senators and U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, D-Maine 1st District.
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