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Shenna Bellows is Maine’s secretary of state.

The economy had crashed, and millions of Americans were out of work. The Ku Klux Klan were publicly very active , and overseas Adolf Hitler was about to open the first concentration camp . It was 1933.

With a teenage daughter and a husband struggling with mental illness at home, Frances Perkins made a list. A list of what she called “ practical possibilities ” that she thought could save America — rebuild the economy, protect democracy and lift up the legions of Americans out of work, along with seniors, and people with disabilities. And she brought it to

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