Harold
Ickes was born in Franklin Township, Pennsylvania,
on March 15, 1874. He attended the University of Chicago,
from which he received both a B.A. (1897) and an LL.D. (1907).
After finishing law school, Ickes practiced in Chicago,
where he also served as a Republican committeeman. A liberal,
Ickes campaigned for Theodore
Roosevelt's Progressive party in 1912 and for the presidential
campaigns of progressive Republicans Charles Evans Hughes
(1916) and Hiram Johnson (1920). By 1932, Ickes no longer
supported Herbert Hoover and headed a committee of liberal
Republicans who supported FDR. FDR rewarded his work by
appointing him secretary of the interior in 1933.
As interior secretary, Ickes moved quickly to address
concerns of American Indians and the National Park System.
His greatest contribution was his administration of the
Public Works Administration (PWA),
a massive New Deal construction program. Through the PWA,
Ickes oversaw the construction of the Triborough Bridge
(New York), Lincoln Tunnel (New York), the Grand Coulee
Dam (Washington), the Key West Highway (Florida), as well
as numerous sewer systems, schools, hospitals, and other
public buildings. Ickes was also in charge of fuel resources
in the U.S. during World War II.
His fastidious management of the PWA budget and his crusade
against corruption earned him the nickname "Honest Harold."
A stalwart supporter of civil rights and civil liberties,
Ickes (a former president of the Chicago NAACP)
lent his strong support to the African American contralto
Marian Anderson when the Daughters of the American Revolution
refused to allow her to perform in its Constitution Hall,
and was a vocal critic of the World War II internment of
Japanese Americans.
He resigned his cabinet position in 1946 when Truman
appointed an oil magnate undersecretary of the navy. He
wrote a column for the New Republic from 1946
until his death in 1952 in which he spoke out forcefully
against
Senator Joseph McCarthy, political corruption, and the
timid leadership of political parties. He also published
five
books: New Democracy (1934), The Autobiography
of a Curmudgeon (1943), and his three-volume Secret
Diary (1953-54).
Sources:
The Concise Dictionary of American Biography.
5th ed. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1997,
606.
Graham, Otis L. and Meghan Robinson Wander. Franklin
D. Roosevelt, His Life and Times. New York: Da Capo
Press, 1985, 199-202.
Schlesinger, Arthur M. Jr. ed. The Almanac of American
History. New York: Putnam, 1983, 467.