Hoover was born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa. Hoover was an unusually active and visible cabinet member, becoming known as 'Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments'. He was influential in the development of radio and air travel and led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election, and decisively defeated the Democratic candidate, Al Smith. Earning the appellation of 'food czar', Hoover recruited a volunteer force of hundreds of thousands of women and deployed propaganda in movie theaters, schools, and churches. He carefully selected men to assist in the agency leadership—Alonzo Taylor (technical abilities), Robert Taft (political associations), Gifford Pinchot (agricultural influence), and Julius Barnes (business acumen).