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Roosevelt had an eye for talent, and even before having to form a cabinet, he surrounded himself with competent allies such as Louis Howe, James Farley, Harry Hopkins and Edward M. House, and relied on these persons not only as governor, but in his 1932 bid for the presidency. Roosevelt was able to build a coalition that drew support from the progressive supporters that supported Woodrow Wilson, as well as conservatives who were jettisoning themselves from the failed policies of the Hoover administration. Roosevelt entered the 1932 Democratic Presidential Nominating Convention with a delegate lead and on the first ballot of the convention, he received the votes of more than half of the delegates (but less than the two-thirds majority needed at the time for a win.) Speaker of the House John Nance Garner threw his support behind Roosevelt after the third ballot, and Roosevelt clinched the nomination on the fourth ballot. Garner won the vice presidential nomination. Roosevelt flew in from New York after learning that he had won the nomination, becoming the first major party presidential nominee to accept the nomination in person.
In the general election, Roosevelt faced incumbent Republican President Herbert Hoover. Despite having personal physical challenges, Roosevelt engaged in a cross-country campaign. He promised that as president he would insure that the federal government did more to stimulate the economy and to lower the tariff as part of a "New Deal." Hoover argued that the depression was caused by international disturbances, and he accused Roosevelt of promoting class conflict. Hoover's re-election hopes were never very strong, but they took more of a hit from the Bonus March 1932, which ended with the violent dispersal of thousands of protesting veterans. Roosevelt won 472 of the 531 electoral votes and 57.4% of the popular vote, making him the first Democratic presidential nominee since the Civil War to win a majority of the popular vote. In the concurrent Congressional elections, the Democrats took control of the Senate and built upon their majority in the House.
As he prepared to take office, Roosevelt sought out powerful and competent personnel for his cabinet, but he did so while retaining all of the important decision making power from the oval office. Historian James MacGregor Burns described FDR's management style as follows:
The president stayed in charge of his administration by drawing fully on his formal and informal powers as Chief Executive; by raising goals, creating momentum, inspiring a personal loyalty, getting the best out of people, by deliberately fostering among his aides a sense of competition and a clash of wills that led to disarray, heartbreak, and anger but also set off pulses of executive energy and sparks of creativity; by handing out one job to several men and several jobs to one man, thus strengthening his own position as a court of appeals, as a depository of information, and as a tool of co-ordination; by ignoring or bypassing collective decision-making agencies, such as the Cabinet and always by persuading, flattering, juggling, improvising, reshuffling, harmonizing, conciliating, manipulating.
For his first Secretary of State, Roosevelt selected Cordell Hull, a prominent Tennessee legislator who had served both in the House and Senate. The choice was somewhat surprising because Hull had not distinguished himself as a foreign policy expert/ But he was a long-time advocate of tariff reduction, was someone who was respected by his Senate colleagues. He did not have aspirations to be president. Hull would hold the office until November of 1944. Together Roosevelt and Hull would work well together and in 1943, Hull and his staff drafted the document that became the United Nations Charter. However there was never any doubt that it was Roosevelt who was guiding the ship of state.
Roosevelt crossed party lines in his appointment of William H. Woodin as Secretary of the Treasury. Woodin was a well-connected industrialist who was a close friend of Roosevelt's. When Woodin died in May of 1934, Roosevelt appointed Henry Morgenthau Jr. to the post. Morgenthau played the central role in financing US participation in World War II. He also played an increasingly major role in shaping foreign policy, especially with respect to the Lend Lease program and in calling for help for Jewish refugees, serving as a lone voice amid resistance from a number of anti-Semitic officials in the State Department and elsewhere in the Roosevelt administration.
The Secretary of the Interior throughout Roosevelt's Presidency was Harold L. Ickes, a progressive Republican who would play an important role in the New Deal. Ickes was responsible for implementing much of Roosevelt's "New Deal". He was in charge of the major relief program, the Public Works Administration (PWA), and the federal government's environmental efforts. Ickes was a prominent liberal spokesman, a skillful orator and a supporter of many African-American causes. He had once been the president of the Chicago NAACP.
Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace was the son of former Secretary of Agriculture Henry Cantwell Wallace. Her had been a farmer, a newspaper editor and was the founder of the Hi-Bred Corn Company, which made Wallace very wealthy. He was considered somewhat flaky because of his interest in non-mainstream religions, becoming interested in theosophy and befriending figures such as George William Russell and Nicholas Roerich. Though raised a Republican, Wallace joined the Democratic Party in 1936. As Agriculture Secretary, Wallace sought to raise farm prices and supported the ever-normal granary concept. After Roosevelt dumped John Nance Garner from the ticket in 1940, he selected Wallace as his running mate in his bid for an unprecedented third term. The selection of the liberal Wallace upset many Democratic delegates, and Wallace was nominated by the 1940 Democratic National Convention only after Roosevelt threatened to decline the presidential nomination. The ticket of Roosevelt and Wallace defeated the Republican ticket in the 1940 election, and Wallace was sworn in as vice president in 1941. The 1944 Democratic National Convention denied Wallace re-nomination and instead selected Harry S. Truman as Roosevelt's running mate. Roosevelt appointed Wallace to the position of Secretary of Commerce in March 1945 and Wallace continued to serve under President Truman after Roosevelt died in April 1945.
Roosevelt appointed the first female Cabinet member in history with the selection of his Secretary of Labor Frances C. Perkins. She had been a sociologist and workers-rights advocate who had been a loyal supporter and friend of Franklin Roosevelt. She helped keep the support of the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet to remain in office for his entire presidency.
James Farley became Postmaster General when Roosevelt became President. Farley was one of the first Irish Catholic politicians in American history to achieve success on a national level. He simultaneously served as Chairman of the New York State Democratic Committee, Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and Postmaster General during Roosevelt's first two terms. Farley was the campaign manager for Roosevelt's 1928 and 1930 gubernatorial campaigns as well as Roosevelt's presidential campaigns of 1932 and 1936. He controlled the administration's patronage machine used by FDR to fuel the social and infrastructure programs of the New Deal. But Farley opposed Roosevelt for breaking the two-term tradition of the presidency. Their friendship ended over that issue in 1940, in part because Farley considered himself as Roosevelt's heir apparent.
Other cabinet appointments included George H. Dern as Secretary of War. Dern, a mine owner and former Utah Governor, would be succeeded by Henry Stimson who held the position during the Second World War. Homer Cummings, a longtime Mayor of Stanford, Connecticut, was FDR's first Attorney General from 1933 to 1939. He had founded the legal firm of Cummings & Lockwood in 1909 and later served as chairman of Democratic National Committee between 1919 and 1920. Claude Swanson was a lawyer who had represented Virginia in the House, as Governor and in the Senate before becoming Secretary of the Navy under Roosevelt. he served in that position until his death in 1939. Lastly as Secretary of Commerce, Roosevelt chose career civil servant Daniel Roper. He played a major role as the man in charge of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) until it was struck down by the Supreme Court in 1935.
The selections of Hull, Woodin, and Roper were meant to reassure the business community, while Wallace, Perkins, and Ickes appealed to Roosevelt's left-wing supporters. Roosevelt knew the importance of holding his New Deal coalition together. He was able to win election to the presidency an unprecedented four times in a row through a combination of effective crisis management, strong coalition and consensus building, and selecting the right person for the job as part of his team-building.