On a snowy day in February 1933, Frances Perkins approaches the house of President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt on 65th Street in New York City. Frances is 53 years old and a longtime friend of Franklin, the future president of the United States. Franklin wheels himself into the room, and, with little ceremony, asks Frances to become his Secretary of Labor. However, Frances has responsibilities at home, which makes her wary of accepting the offer.

Unwilling to turn down the offer outright, she resolves to dissuade Franklin from hiring her. She gives him a list of goals that she hopes to accomplish if she becomes Secretary of Labor, hoping that he’ll view these goals as unreasonable and retract his offer. The list includes entries such as “Get rid of child labor, limit working hours, create a minimum wage” (5). To her surprise, Franklin agrees to her plan, and Frances goes home to discuss her candidacy with her husband and family.

The first chapter returns to the summer of 1909 in New York City. A young Frances moves to Hell’s Kitchen, one of the most notoriously violent tenement neighborhoods in the city.