Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, 1874, in West Branch, IowaIowaIowa is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Des Moines. It was admitted to the Union on December 28, 1846, as the 29th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 3,190,369.Open the full entry. His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith; his mother, Hulda Minthorn Hoover, was a seamstress and a recorded minister of the Quakers.⁠[1]

The cottage in which he was born had been built by his father in 1871. Hoover was the first president born west of the Mississippi River.⁠[2][3]

His father died in 1880 at age 34, and his mother died in 1884, leaving Hoover an orphan at nine.⁠[2][1]

In November 1885, aged 11, Hoover moved to OregonOregonOregon (officially the State of Oregon) is a state on the Pacific coast of the western United States; its capital is Salem and its largest city is Portland. It was admitted to the Union on February 14, 1859, as the 33rd state. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 4,237,256.Open the full entry to live with the family of his uncle, Dr. John Minthorn, and attended Friends Pacific Academy in Newberg. At 14 he left school to work as a clerk in his uncle’s real estate business.⁠[1][4][5]

Hoover entered Leland Stanford Junior UniversityStanford UniversityStanford University is a research university in California founded by Leland and Jane Stanford in 1885 and opened in 1891.Open the full entry (Stanford University), which opened in 1891, as a member of its first class, studied geology and graduated in 1895. At Stanford he was mentored by Professor John Caspar Branner, served as student body treasurer, managed the baseball and football teams and met his future wife, Lou Henry.⁠[1][5]

After graduating, Hoover worked at a gold mine in CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry and then as a mining engineer in Australia and China, holding similar jobs around the world. In 1908 he opened his own mining consulting business; by 1914 he was financially secure, with income from high-paying positions, Burmese silver mines and royalties from a mining engineering textbook.⁠[4]

His mining projects spanned four continents; within two decades of leaving Stanford his net worth was about $4 million.⁠[5]

On February 10, 1899, Hoover married Lou Henry, a fellow Stanford geology student, to whom he had proposed by cable from Australia.⁠[6][4]

During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900, Hoover took part in the defense of and relief work in Tianjin, while Lou Henry Hoover nursed wounded Western diplomats and soldiers.⁠[4][5]

Raised a Quaker, Hoover valued individual freedom, charity and scientific expertise. He identified with the progressive wing of the Republican Party and supported Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was an American Republican politician, writer, naturalist, and soldier who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 and received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.Open the full entry’s third-party presidential campaign in 1912.⁠[4]

When World War I began in 1914, Hoover was in London. He organized aid for American travelers fleeing the war and then founded the Commission for Relief in Belgium to feed civilians in the war zone.⁠[1]

Without direct government support, the commission raised millions of dollars for food and medicine and fed about nine million people.⁠[4][5]

After the United States entered the war in 1917, Woodrow WilsonWoodrow WilsonWoodrow Wilson (1856–1924) was an American scholar and politician who served as president of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey and was the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921, leading the country through World War I and proposing the League of Nations.Open the full entry appointed Hoover to lead the United States Food Administration. His conservation campaign became so well known that “to Hooverize” came to mean rationing household materials.⁠[1][4]

After the war ended in 1918, Hoover directed the American Relief Administration in Europe, delivering large amounts of food and supplies to about twenty nations, including famine-stricken Soviet Russia in 1921–1923.⁠[1][4][5]

He also served as a wartime adviser to Woodrow Wilson, was a member of the American delegation to the Versailles peace conference and supported American membership in the League of Nations.⁠[7][4]

In 1919 Hoover founded the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which bears his name.⁠[1][5]

In 1920 Hoover sought the Republican presidential nomination, but his bid was blocked by Senator Hiram Johnson, who opposed his support for the League of Nations.⁠[4]

From 1921 to 1928 Hoover served as secretary of commerce under Presidents Warren G. HardingWarren G. HardingWarren G. Harding (1865–1923) was an American newspaper publisher and politician who served as lieutenant governor of Ohio and as a U.S. senator before becoming the 29th president of the United States in March 1921; he died in office in August 1923.Open the full entry and Calvin CoolidgeCalvin CoolidgeCalvin Coolidge (1872–1933) was an American lawyer and politician who served as governor of Massachusetts and, from 1921, as vice president of the United States; he succeeded Warren G. Harding as the 30th president in August 1923, was elected to a full term in 1924 and served until 1929.Open the full entry.⁠[8]

Under him the Commerce Department grew in influence: he promoted economic research and the standardization of industrial products, supported the regulation of aviation and radio, expanded international trade and encouraged voluntary trade associations as a middle path between competition and monopoly. He also added airways and runways for the growing commercial airline industry.⁠[4][9]

He spearheaded efforts that led to the construction of Hoover Dam and the St. Lawrence Seaway.⁠[5]

In 1927 Hoover directed relief after severe Mississippi River floods that left roughly 350,000 people homeless, earning the nickname “master of emergencies.”⁠[9][1]

When Calvin Coolidge announced that same year that he would not seek reelection, Hoover became the leading candidate for the Republican nomination.⁠[4]

In 1928 Hoover, who had never held elected office, won the Republican nomination on the first ballot at the Kansas City convention, with Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis of Kansas as his running mate. The Democrats nominated Governor Alfred E. Smith of New York, with Senator Joseph G. Robinson of Arkansas. Religion and Prohibition dominated the race, and Smith faced widespread anti-Catholic attacks.⁠[10][1]

In the November election Hoover received 21,391,993 popular votes (58.2 percent) to Smith’s 15,016,169 (40.9 percent) and won 444 electoral votes to 87. He carried 40 states, including New York, all the border states and five traditionally Democratic southern states. Turnout was about 57 percent, up from 49 percent in 1924.⁠[10]

Hoover’s presidency lasted from March 4, 1929, to March 3, 1933.⁠[5]

He kept Andrew Mellon at the Treasury but relied on Undersecretary Ogden Mills for economic advice; his cabinet also included Henry Stimson (State), Ray Wilbur (Interior), Charles Adams (Navy) and William Mitchell (Attorney General). He appointed hundreds of young technocrats trained in the social sciences.⁠[11]

In his first months he sought better conditions for Native Americans, won passage of the Boulder Canyon Project Act (later Hoover Dam), appointed Horace Albright to head the National Park Service and added nearly two million acres to the national forest reserve.⁠[11]

In June 1929 Congress passed the Agricultural Marketing Act, which created a $500 million Federal Farm Board but provided no farm subsidies. The Miller Center’s essay judges that the act did little for farmers.⁠[11][7]

The stock market crashed on October 24 (“Black Thursday”) and October 29 (“Black Tuesday”), 1929, and the Great Depression began.⁠[11]

Hoover persuaded business leaders to keep wages steady, ordered federal construction projects accelerated and asked the states to expand public works. He sought a $160 million tax cut and increased spending on public buildings, dams, highways and harbors, but opposed direct federal relief for the unemployed.⁠[1]

Between 1929 and 1933 about 5,000 banks failed and one in four farms went into foreclosure; unemployment rose from 3 million in 1930 to 10 million in 1932.⁠[11][1]

Hoover supported disarmament at the London Naval Conference of 1930; BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry judges that the effort did little to reduce world tensions.⁠[5]

After the death of Justice Edward Sanford, Hoover nominated John J. Parker to the Supreme Court of the United States. In May 1930 the Senate rejected the nomination 41 to 39, with ten Republicans voting against him.⁠[11]

In June 1930 Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff, raising rates to historic levels, and Hoover signed it despite objections from many economists. Britannica and the Miller Center both judge that the high duties hurt international trade.⁠[11][5]

By June 1931 more than eight million people, 15 percent of the total workforce, were unemployed. That month Hoover called for a one-year moratorium on intergovernmental debts. Congress passed the Bonus Bill over his veto, and in August 1931 the President’s Organization for Unemployment Relief was created.⁠[11]

In January 1932 Hoover created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, which used federal funds to lend to banks and industries, and helped establish the Federal Home Loan Banks.⁠[1][5]

The Norris-La Guardia Anti-Injunction Act of March 1932 limited “yellow dog” contracts and federal injunctions against strikes, and the Emergency Relief and Construction Act of summer 1932 provided $2 billion for public works and $300 million for state-run relief.⁠[11]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that the Reconstruction Finance Corporation was undersized, focused on corporations rather than the poor, and ultimately unsuccessful.⁠[7]

In July 1932 the Bonus Army, World War I veterans who had gathered in Washington, D.C., to seek early payment of their bonuses, was forcibly removed. Hoover authorized Douglas MacArthur to evict them, and MacArthur exceeded those orders; troops used cavalry, tanks and tear gas and burned the veterans’ shacks. The episode damaged Hoover’s public image.⁠[11][5][7]

In 1932 Hoover and Charles Curtis were renominated on the first ballot at the Republican convention in Chicago, whose platform reversed the party’s position and backed repeal of Prohibition. The Democrats nominated Governor Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry of New York on the fourth ballot.⁠[10]

More than 40 million people voted, a record. Roosevelt carried 42 of the 48 states with nearly 23 million popular votes and 472 electoral votes; Hoover received slightly less than 16 million popular votes and 59 electoral votes; except for PennsylvaniaPennsylvaniaPennsylvania (officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania) is a Middle Atlantic state of the United States; its capital is Harrisburg, and Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are its two great metropolitan areas. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 12, 1787, the second state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 13,002,700.Open the full entry, all the states he won were in New England. The Democrats also won both houses of Congress by large majorities.⁠[10][5]

Hoover left Washington, D.C., on March 4, 1933, and retreated to Palo Alto, California. From there he attacked Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs in letters and essays, and in 1936 he supported Alfred M. Landon for president.⁠[1][12]

In October 1936 Hoover took up the cause of the Boys Clubs of America, which occupied him for the rest of his life.⁠[13]

During a 1938 European tour Hoover met Adolf Hitler and criticized him. In 1939 he opposed U.S. entry into the war, supporting it only after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Franklin D. Roosevelt kept him out of public service during World War II.⁠[12][5][1]

From December 1940 Hoover lived mainly at the Waldorf Towers on Park Avenue in New York City.⁠[13]

In late May 1945, about six weeks after Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death, Hoover met Harry S. Truman to plan postwar European recovery, beginning a friendship between the two. In an August 1945 letter he opposed using the atomic bomb on Japan, comparing it to poison gas.⁠[1][13][12]

In early 1946 Harry S. Truman sent the 71-year-old Hoover to 38 nations to survey food needs and avert mass starvation after the war; he traveled more than 50,000 miles in three months, then led a second mission to Latin America and in 1947 returned to Germany and Austria.⁠[13]

In 1947 Congress named Hoover chairman of the commission on the organization of the executive branch (the Hoover Commission), aimed at streamlining the federal bureaucracy. With Harry S. Truman’s support, more than 70 percent of its recommendations became law, some through the Executive Reorganization Act of 1949.⁠[12][13]

From 1953 to 1955 Hoover chaired a second commission at Dwight D. Eisenhower’s request, though he was frustrated by the administration’s limited support for its recommendations. The Miller Center’s essay judges the second commission less successful.⁠[1][12]

In the late 1950s Hoover agreed to let friends and associates build a presidential library near his Iowa birthplace and asked that it be modest in scale. On August 10, 1962, he made his last visit to Iowa to dedicate the building to the American people.⁠[1]

Hoover died of colon cancer in New York City on October 20, 1964, at age 90.⁠[5][12]

On October 25, 1964, Hoover was buried on a hillside in West Branch overlooking the cottage where he was born. More than 100,000 people lined the funeral route from Cedar Rapids to West Branch.⁠[1][3]

The gravesite was designed by Iowa architect William Wagner with the Hoover family; two plain ledger stones of VermontVermontVermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital is Montpelier and its largest city is Burlington. It joined the Union on March 4, 1791, as the 14th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 643,077.Open the full entry white marble mark the graves, reflecting Quaker simplicity.⁠[3]

His wife, Lou Henry Hoover (1875–1944), came from Waterloo, Iowa. She died in 1944 and was first buried in Palo Alto, California, before being moved to rest beside her husband in 1964.⁠[6][3]

The couple had two sons, Herbert Clark Hoover (1903–1969) and Allan Henry Hoover (1907–1993). The elder graduated from Stanford in 1925 and Harvard Business School in 1928, worked mostly as a mining engineer and served as undersecretary of state from October 1954 to December 1956; the younger graduated in economics from Stanford in 1929, went into banking and later helped run the Hoover Institution.⁠[6][14]

In American Individualism (1922) Hoover argued that individualism was the best basis for society, rejecting both laissez-faire capitalism and socialism.⁠[4]

After leaving office he published more than 40 books, including The Challenge to Liberty (1934) and the eight-volume Addresses upon the American Road (1936–1961).⁠[1][5]

The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch is part of the presidential library system administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.⁠[1]

The Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, managed by the National Park Service, includes the birthplace cottage, a blacksmith shop, a schoolhouse, a Friends meetinghouse, the Hoovers’ gravesite, a statue of Isis and the presidential library and museum; its memorial landscape was developed from 1935 to 1966.⁠[2]

Harry S. Truman restored Hoover’s name to the dam that had been called Boulder Dam.⁠[13]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that Hoover’s reputation has improved over time: scholars no longer blame him for causing the Depression, and many consider his anti-Depression efforts extraordinary compared with earlier federal responses, but the economy continued to decline on his watch and he paid the political price in 1932.⁠[7]

Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum: Official website: https://hoover.archives.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]

Herbert Hoover National Historic Site: Official website: https://www.nps.gov/heho/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]