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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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The housing was provided in advance.

Interviewer:

It would have been harder under wartime conditions, but the main thing is, you cannot harvest soybeans with a bunch of women.

Perkins:

Well, I don't know. I don't think we ever had any soybeans in New York State. I remember, It was strawberries and raspberries and cherries and strinbbeans and peas and light vegetables--market garden stuff. No, it wasn't a question in New York of running machinery. But he thought that it could be done, you see. He thought that you could extend it. That was a part of his imaginative approach to a lot of these problems.

Interviewer:

Is this farm labor one of the things that harold Smith talked about?

Perkins:

Oh yes. He talked about it all the time. He thought you could assign women to these jobs. He had no doubt that you could assign women, and that they would do their work, you see. Of course, he mentioned the women's land army in England, where there was a very sizable women's land army. But they were up against it--nothing to eat.

It becomes a matter of great urgency.

It is true that all sorts of women of all walks of life threw themselves into the, not only the women's land army, but





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