Background
Perkins was born Rebecca Clarendon Talbot in Brooklyn, the daughter of Joseph Talbot and the former Eliza Clarendon.
Perkins was born Rebecca Clarendon Talbot in Brooklyn, the daughter of Joseph Talbot and the former Eliza Clarendon.
She attended what is now known as the Chautauqua Institution and continued to work there for ten years after graduating.
She was inducted into the National Women"s Hall of Fame in 2009. Joseph Talbot founded a real estate brokerage but died of influenza just a few years later, in 1890. Rebecca, still unmarried, took over the business at a time when it was rare for a woman to be in business at all, let alone running a firm.
Even while running the brokerage, she maintained an active involvement in charity and social activism.
In 1927, she founded (with the Alliance) The Rebecca Talbot Perkins Adoption Society, which later became Talbot Perkins Children"s Services.