Top 10 Best Cabinet Members

As the President-elect and his transition team think about whom to tap for top jobs in the Obama Administration, TIME looks back on a group of 20th-century Cabinet members who distinguished their offices

Harold L. Ickes

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A staunch conservationist and avid New Dealer, Ickes was a champion of the National Park Service and a fierce opponent of corruption who earned the nickname "Honest Harold." But perhaps his greatest role — assumed while Interior Secretary — was as head of the Public Works Administration, a multibillion-dollar enterprise that created millions of jobs by funding construction projects ranging from bridges and highways to dams and airports. The government gene was apparently passed on — Ickes' son, Harold M. Ickes, is a veteran Democratic strategist and former deputy White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton.

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