Harold LeClair Ickes

Harold L. Ickes (1874–1952) began his career as a newspaper reporter but later became a lawyer. He was a liberal Republican reformer who gradually transferred his allegiance to Democratic causes. Ickes is the longest-serving secretary of the Interior. He elevated Interior's reputation, keeping the Department scandal-free during his nearly 13-year term. Ickes' self-described "curmudgeonly" disposition made him a colorful personality on the Washington political scene, and he approached his role as secretary with vigor. He was the first sitting Interior secretary to have his photograph appear on the cover of TIME magazine (July 24, 1933). Although he surrounded himself with talented advisors and bureau chiefs, he preferred to personally tend to the details of major initiatives. He emerged as a champion of civil rights, drawing upon his previous experience as president of the NAACP in Chicago. For his first six years as secretary, Ickes concurrently headed President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Public Works Administration, through which he allocated more than $6 billion nationally in building and infrastructure projects. During Ickes' time, 80 million acres of grasslands came under Departmental control for grazing districts via the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934. The Wheeler-Howard (Indian Reorganization) Act that same year became known as the "Indian New Deal"; it reversed many of the injustices of the Dawes Act and began the return of reservation lands to community ownership. Boarding schools for American Indians were also discontinued. While Ickes unsuccessfully tried to wrest the Forest Service from the Department of Agriculture, he did expand and firmly establish Interior's role as a protector of natural resources. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was created—via consolidation of the Department of Commerce's Bureau of Fisheries and the Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Biological Survey—and added to Interior's portfolio in 1940. For the duration of World War II, Ickes was named the Petroleum Coordinator for National Defense, placing him in charge of America's fuel needs. Ickes stayed for Roosevelt's entire presidency but did not enjoy the same rapport with Truman. Ickes resigned from Interior a year after Roosevelt's death. He remained in the spotlight by writing columns for various national newspapers. In 1943 he penned his autobiography—one of several books to his credit—and his three-volume Secret Diary was published posthumously.

Since the Ickes family considered artist Henry Salem Hubbell a friend and owned some of his works, it was not surprising that Ickes turned to him to paint his official secretarial portrait. While most such portraits are typically commissioned at or near the end of a secretary's tenure, Ickes broke with tradition and had his portrait done just a year into his term; the inscription at the bottom of the canvas was added later. Secretary Ickes is depicted in his first office—in what is now the General Services Administration Building. On his desk are the plans for the current Interior building, the construction of which Ickes oversaw as Federal Public Works Project No. 4. When Ickes learned that several past secretarial portraits had been rendered simply as crayon drawings incongruous with the other existing paintings, he again enlisted Hubbell. The artist took the additional commissions very seriously. Since many secretaries were long since deceased, Hubbell conducted exhaustive research to ensure faithful likenesses, including corresponding with secretaries' descendants to verify eye color and hair style, and—where available—consulting photographs and other known works. Within less than a year, Hubbell had completed 15 new portraits for Interior.