DAMARISCOTTA — Months before the national broadcast by American Public Television, producer and filmmaker Mick Caouette of South Hill Films, hosted by the Frances Perkins Center, for the final Maine pre-premiere screening and discussion of “Summoned: Frances Perkins and the General Welfare.”

The first film biography of one of the most important women in U.S. history. The film viewing is set for 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 5, at Lincoln Theater, 2 Theater St., according to a news release from Frances Perkins Center.

The film will be followed by a 5 p.m. Q&A session with Caouette, Frances Perkins’ grandson Tomlin Perkins Coggeshall and Ruth Cashin Monsell.

In March of 2020, an election year energized by women candidates and the centennial celebration of Women’s Suffrage, American Public Television will premiere the story of the first woman cabinet member, Perkins, Secretary of Labor under FDR (1933-45), the woman behind the New Deal.

The film is about the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed Perkins as the first woman on a Presidential Cabinet. Against overwhelming odds, she became the driving force behind Social Security, the 40-hour work week, the eight‐hour work day, unemployment insurance, and the minimum wage.

“Summoned: Frances Perkins and the General Welfare” features interviews with Maine Sen. George Mitchell, David Brooks, Nancy Pelosi, Amy Klobuchar, Lawrence O’Donnell, and others while telling Perkins’ heroic story which explores the history of women in politics, Social Security, our attitudes toward immigration, poverty, Socialism, and the role of government. Without this context our current dialogue is ill-informed and diminished.

The event is free, and registration is required, to register, visit francesperkinscenter.org.

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