Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1Alexander HamiltonAlexander HamiltonBorn 11 Jan 1755The first Treasury Secretary had a department Congress had just created and few precedents. Hamilton used it to have the federal government assume state war debts, found the First Bank of the United States in 1791 and argue for its constitutionality through implied powers, a reading that still…0i
  2. 2Albert GallatinAlbert GallatinBorn 29 Jan 1761Jefferson's Treasury Secretary from 1801 to 1814 cut the national debt while finding the money for the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, largely through bonds. His 1808 report on roads and canals set out the first national plan for federally funded infrastructure.0i
  3. 3John Quincy AdamsJohn Quincy AdamsBorn 11 Jul 1767As Monroe's Secretary of State, Adams negotiated the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, which secured Florida from Spain and drew a border to the Pacific, and he was the main author of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. He insisted it be a unilateral American statement rather than a joint one with Britain.0i
  4. 4William H. SewardWilliam H. SewardBorn 16 May 1801Seward served Lincoln and Johnson as Secretary of State, keeping Britain and France out of the Civil War, and in 1867 negotiated the purchase of Alaska from Russia for 7.2 million dollars. Mocked at the time as "Seward's Folly", the treaty is the clearest case of a secretary's own initiative.0i
  5. 5Edwin StantonEdwin StantonBorn 19 Dec 1814Lincoln's Secretary of War from 1862 ran the Union's military logistics, railways and telegraph, and led the pursuit of Lincoln's assassins. When Andrew Johnson tried to dismiss him in 1868, Stanton refused to leave his office, and the removal, made in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act, led to…0i
  6. 6John HayJohn HayBorn 8 Oct 1838Secretary of State under McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, Hay issued the Open Door Notes of 1899 and 1900, asking the powers to keep trade with China equal and its territory intact. He also negotiated the Hay-Pauncefote and Hay-Bunau-Varilla treaties that cleared the way for the Panama Canal.0i
  7. 7Elihu RootElihu RootBorn 15 Feb 1845As Secretary of War from 1899, Root created the Army War College and a general staff, the basis of the modern army's command structure. He also wrote the colonial governance of the Philippines and the Platt Amendment for Cuba, a record critics see as imperial, before winning a Nobel Peace Prize for…0i
  8. 8Andrew MellonAndrew MellonBorn 24 Mar 1855Mellon was Treasury Secretary under three presidents, 1921 to 1932, and his programme of steep cuts to top income tax rates defined 1920s fiscal policy. He remains a reference point in arguments over supply-side economics, and his policies after the 1929 crash are widely criticised.0i
  9. 9Frances PerkinsFrances PerkinsBorn 10 Apr 1880The first woman in a US cabinet, Perkins took the Labor job in 1933 on condition that Roosevelt back her agenda. She chaired the Committee on Economic Security that designed the Social Security Act of 1935 and drove the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, with its minimum wage and limits on child…0i
  10. 10Harold L. IckesHarold L. IckesBorn 15 Mar 1874Interior Secretary from 1933 to 1946 and head of the Public Works Administration, Ickes directed billions into dams, bridges, schools and housing while keeping a reputation for clean spending. He also arranged Marian Anderson's 1939 concert at the Lincoln Memorial after she was barred from…0i