Becoming Madam Secretary Book Review

At the beginning of the 20th century, some women had the opportunity to go to college and pursue a career before settling down and starting a family. They had no idea of the precedent that they were setting.

Stephanie Dray‘s new book, Becoming Madam Secretary, is the life story of Frances Perkins. It was published in March. Perkins was the first American female to serve in a Presidential cabinet and the architect of The New Deal. After getting her degree (which was unusual for the era), Perkins started working to assist poor families in the tenements in New York City.

Her entire world changes with the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. After the loss of innocent life, she knows her purpose. Joining up with a group of the city’s eclectic citizens, she falls in love with and marries Paul Wilson. Perkins also meets future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Their first impression of one another is not exactly a harbinger of their future professional relationship.

As time rolls on and she climbs the political ranks, the push-pull of work vs. family comes into play. Making it worse is the discrimination she faces at the office and her husband’s downturn into mental illness.

Becoming Madam Secretary is one of my favorite books that I have read so far this year. I knew of Perkins before I read Dray’s novel. I just didn’t know that much about her.

In our time, she would be just another woman trying to pull off the work/life balance. In her time, she broke boundaries that many of us take for granted today.

Do I recommend it? Absolutely.

Becoming Madam Secretary is available wherever books are sold.

Freedom Means That I Can Be True to Myself

Daily writing prompt

What does freedom mean to you?

View all responses

Conformity is easy. The harder task is to be yourself, even when that means being potentially ostracized and hated.

“This above all: to thine own self be true”-William Shakespeare, Hamlet. Act 1, Scene III

Herland and Selected Stories Book Review

For every author from a marginalized community whose work has remained in print over the decades, others have been forgotten.

Charlotte Perkins Gillman is one of these writers. In 2014, editor Barbara H. Solomon released an anthology of Perkins Gillman’s work, entitled Herland and Selected Stories. Starting with Herland, Solomon also includes other short stories that for the most part, have not been included in the canon of classic works by a female author.

I am not shocked that modern readers need to be introduced to the author. Like other women writers before her, she uses fiction to point out discrimination and sexism that was and still is prevalent.

Do I recommend it? Yes.

Herland and Selected Stories is available wherever books are sold.