162 Facts About Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933.

Herbert Hoover was a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Great Depression in the United States.

Herbert Hoover was born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, but he grew up in Oregon.

Herbert Hoover was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895.

Herbert Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China.

Herbert Hoover was an unusually active and visible Cabinet member, becoming known as "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments".

Herbert Hoover was influential in the development of air travel and radio.

Herbert Hoover led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927.

Herbert Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election and defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith in a landslide.

In 1929 Herbert Hoover assumed the presidency during a period of widespread economic stability.

Herbert Hoover scapegoated Mexican Americans for the Depression, and approximately one million were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation.

Herbert Hoover's retirement was over 31 years long, one of the longest presidential retirements.

Herbert Hoover authored numerous works and became increasingly conservative in retirement.

Herbert Hoover strongly criticized Roosevelt's foreign policy and New Deal domestic agenda.

Critical assessments of his presidency by historians and political scientists generally rank him as a significantly below-average president, although Herbert Hoover has received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official.

Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10,1874, in West Branch, Iowa.

Herbert Hoover's father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner of German, Swiss, and English ancestry.

Herbert Hoover's family figured prominently in the town's public prayer life, due almost entirely to mother Hulda's role in the church.

Herbert Hoover's father, noted by the local paper for his "pleasant, sunshiny disposition", died in 1880 at the age of 34 of a sudden heart attack.

Herbert Hoover's mother died in 1884 of typhoid, leaving Herbert Hoover, his older brother, Theodore, and his younger sister, May, as orphans.

Herbert Hoover lived the next 18 months with his uncle Allen Herbert Hoover at a nearby farm.

In November 1885, Herbert Hoover was sent to Newberg, Oregon, to live with his uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman whose own son had died the year before.

Minthorn ensured that Herbert Hoover received an education, but Herbert Hoover disliked the many chores assigned to him and often resented Minthorn.

Herbert Hoover attended Friends Pacific Academy, but dropped out at the age of thirteen to become an office assistant for his uncle's real estate office in Salem, Oregon.

Herbert Hoover was a member of the inaugural "Pioneer Class" of Stanford University, entering in 1891 despite failing all the entrance exams except mathematics.

Herbert Hoover was a mediocre student, and he spent much of his time working in various part-time jobs or participating in campus activities.

Herbert Hoover served as student manager of both the baseball and football teams, and helped organize the inaugural Big Game versus the University of California.

When Herbert Hoover graduated from Stanford in 1895, the country was in the midst of the Panic of 1893 and he initially struggled to find a job.

Herbert Hoover worked in various low-level mining jobs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains until persuading prominent mining engineer Louis Janin to hire him.

Herbert Hoover first went to Coolgardie, then the center of the Eastern Goldfields, which was actually in Western Australia, receiving a $5,000 salary.

Conditions were harsh in the goldfields; Herbert Hoover described the Coolgardie and Murchison rangelands on the edge of the Great Victoria Desert as a land of "black flies, red dust and white heat".

Herbert Hoover traveled constantly across the Outback to evaluate and manage the company's mines.

Herbert Hoover convinced Bewick to purchase the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, which proved to be one of the most successful mines in the region.

Herbert Hoover brought in many Italian immigrants to cut costs and counter the labour movement of the Australian miners.

Herbert Hoover's work impressed his employers, and in 1898 he was promoted to junior partner.

Herbert Hoover became deeply interested in Chinese history, but gave up on learning the language to a fluent level.

Herbert Hoover publicly warned that Chinese workers were inefficient and racially inferior.

Herbert Hoover made recommendations to improve the lot of the Chinese worker, seeking to end the practice of imposing long-term servitude contracts and to institute reforms for workers based on merit.

Herbert Hoover specialized in rejuvenating troubled mining operations, taking a share of the profits in exchange for his technical and financial expertise.

Herbert Hoover thought of himself and his associates as "engineering doctors to sick concerns", and he earned a reputation as a "doctor of sick mines".

Herbert Hoover made investments on every continent and had offices in San Francisco; London; New York City; Paris; Petrograd; and Mandalay, British Burma.

Herbert Hoover co-founded the Zinc Corporation to extract zinc near the Australian city of Broken Hill, New South Wales.

Herbert Hoover worked with the Burma Corporation, a British firm that produced silver, lead, and zinc in large quantities at the Namtu Bawdwin Mine.

Herbert Hoover helped increase copper production in Kyshtym, Russia, through the use of pyritic smelting.

Herbert Hoover agreed to manage a separate mine in the Altai Mountains that, according to Hoover, "developed probably the greatest and richest single body of ore known in the world".

The book reflects his move towards progressive ideals, as Herbert Hoover came to endorse eight-hour workdays and organized labor.

Herbert Hoover became deeply interested in the history of science, and he was especially drawn to the De re metallica, an influential 16th century work on mining and metallurgy by Georgius Agricola.

Herbert Hoover joined the board of trustees at Stanford, and led a successful campaign to appoint John Branner as the university's president.

Immediately after earning a promotion in 1898, Herbert Hoover cabled Lou Henry, asking her to marry him.

The Herbert Hoover family began living in London in 1902, though they frequently traveled as part of Herbert Hoover's career.

The Theodore J Hoover Natural Preserve is part of Big Basin State Park.

Herbert Hoover was appointed as the committee's chair and, with the assent of Congress and the Wilson administration, took charge of the distribution of relief to Americans in Europe.

Herbert Hoover worked 14-hour days from London, administering the distribution of over two million tons of food to nine million war victims.

Herbert Hoover convinced British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George to allow individuals to send money to the people of Belgium, thereby lessening workload of the CRB.

World War I came to an end in November 1918, but Europe continued to face a critical food situation; Herbert Hoover estimated that as many as 400 million people faced the possibility of starvation.

The United States Food Administration became the American Relief Administration, and Herbert Hoover was charged with providing food to Central and Eastern Europe.

Herbert Hoover established the European Children's Fund, which provided relief to fifteen million children across fourteen countries.

Herbert Hoover condemned the Bolsheviks, but warned President Wilson against an intervention in the Russian Civil War, as he viewed the White Russian forces as little better than the Bolsheviks and feared the possibility of a protracted US involvement.

In 1919, Herbert Hoover established the Herbert Hoover War Collection at Stanford University.

Herbert Hoover donated all the files of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the US Food Administration, and the American Relief Administration, and pledged $50,000 as an endowment.

Herbert Hoover had been little known among the American public before 1914, but his service in the Wilson administration established him as a contender in the 1920 presidential election.

Herbert Hoover initially sought to avoid committing to any party in the 1920 election, hoping that either of the two major parties would draft him for president at their national conventions.

Herbert Hoover backed Harding's successful campaign in the general election, and he began laying the groundwork for a future presidential run by building a base of strong supporters in the Republican Party.

Secretary of Commerce was considered a minor Cabinet post, with limited and vaguely defined responsibilities, but Herbert Hoover decided to accept the position.

Herbert Hoover would serve as Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1929, serving under Harding and, after Harding's death in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge.

Herbert Hoover envisioned the Commerce Department as the hub of the nation's growth and stability.

Herbert Hoover's experience mobilizing the war-time economy convinced him that the federal government could promote efficiency by eliminating waste, increasing production, encouraging the adoption of data-based practices, investing in infrastructure, and conserving natural resources.

Herbert Hoover sought to foster a balance among labor, capital, and the government, and for this, he has been variously labeled a corporatist or an associationalist.

Herbert Hoover demanded and received, authority to coordinate economic affairs throughout the government.

Herbert Hoover created many sub-departments and committees, overseeing and regulating everything from manufacturing statistics to air travel.

Herbert Hoover endorsed much of Mellon's tax reduction program, but favored a more progressive tax system and opposed the treasury secretary's efforts to eliminate the estate tax.

Herbert Hoover helped pass the Radio Act of 1927, which allowed the government to intervene and abolish radio stations that were deemed "non-useful" to the public.

Herbert Hoover was influential in the early development of air travel, and he sought to create a thriving private industry boosted by indirect government subsidies.

Herbert Hoover encouraged the development of emergency landing fields, required all runways to be equipped with lights and radio beams, and encouraged farmers to make use of planes for crop dusting.

Herbert Hoover established the federal government's power to inspect planes and license pilots, setting a precedent for the later Federal Aviation Administration.

Herbert Hoover left the invited interest groups to negotiate agreements among themselves, which were then presented for adoption by states and localities.

Phillips Payson O'Brien argues that Herbert Hoover had a Britain problem.

Herbert Hoover had spent so many years living in Britain and Australia, as an employee of British companies, there was a risk that he would be labeled a British tool.

Herbert Hoover energetically gave a series of speeches and interviews denouncing the monopolistic practice, and demanding that it be ended.

Herbert Hoover recruited numerous academics from various fields and tasked them with publishing reports on different aspects of the economy, including steel production and films.

Herbert Hoover promoted international trade by opening overseas offices to advise businessmen.

Herbert Hoover's "Own Your Own Home" campaign was a collaboration to promote ownership of single-family dwellings, with groups such as the Better Houses in America movement, the Architects' Small House Service Bureau, and the Home Modernizing Bureau.

Herbert Hoover worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote the new long-term home mortgage, which dramatically stimulated home construction.

Herbert Hoover established over one hundred tent cities and a fleet of more than six hundred vessels, and raised $17 million.

In large part due to his leadership during the flood crisis, by 1928, Herbert Hoover had begun to overshadow President Coolidge himself.

Herbert Hoover did so with the cooperation of African-American leader Robert Russa Moton, who was promised unprecedented influence once Hoover became president.

Herbert Hoover quietly built up support for a future presidential bid throughout the 1920s, but he carefully avoided alienating Coolidge, who possibly could have run for another term in the 1928 presidential election.

Herbert Hoover won the presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1928 Republican National Convention.

Convention delegates considered re-nominating Vice President Charles Dawes to be Herbert Hoover's running mate, but Coolidge, who hated Dawes, remarked that this would be "a personal affront" to him.

Herbert Hoover accepted the nomination at Stanford Stadium, telling a huge crowd that he would continue the policies of the Harding and Coolidge administrations.

Herbert Hoover centered his campaign around the Republican record of peace and prosperity, as well as his own reputation as a successful engineer and public official.

Averse to giving political speeches, Herbert Hoover largely stayed out of the fray and left the campaigning to Curtis and other Republicans.

Herbert Hoover had never been a strong proponent of Prohibition, but he accepted the Republican Party's plank in favor of it and issued an ambivalent statement calling Prohibition "a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose".

Herbert Hoover maintained polling leads throughout the 1928 campaign, and he decisively defeated Smith on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote and 444 of the 531 electoral votes.

Herbert Hoover's victory was positively received by newspapers; one wrote that Herbert Hoover would "drive so forcefully at the tasks now before the nation that the end of his eight years as president will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement".

Herbert Hoover's detractors wondered why he did not do anything to reapportion congress after the 1920 United States Census which saw an increase in urban and immigrant populations.

Herbert Hoover tended to oppose governmental coercion or intervention, as he thought they infringed on American ideals of individualism and self-reliance.

Herbert Hoover made extensive use of commissions to study issues and propose solutions, and many of those commissions were sponsored by private donors rather than by the government.

Herbert Hoover appointed a Cabinet consisting largely of wealthy, business-oriented conservatives, including Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon.

On taking office, Herbert Hoover said that "given the chance to go forward with the policies of the last eight years, we shall soon with the help of God, be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this nation".

The causes of the Great Depression remain a matter of debate, but Herbert Hoover viewed a lack of confidence in the financial system as the fundamental economic problem facing the nation.

Herbert Hoover sought to avoid direct federal intervention, believing that the best way to bolster the economy was through the strengthening of businesses such as banks and railroads.

Herbert Hoover feared that allowing individuals on the "dole" would permanently weaken the country.

Herbert Hoover convinced railroads and public utilities to increase spending on construction and maintenance, and the Federal Reserve announced that it would cut interest rates.

In early 1930, Herbert Hoover acquired from Congress an additional $100 million to continue the Federal Farm Board lending and purchasing policies.

Herbert Hoover had taken office hoping to raise agricultural tariffs in order to help farmers reeling from the farm crisis of the 1920s, but his attempt to raise agricultural tariffs became connected with a bill that broadly raised tariffs.

Herbert Hoover refused to become closely involved in the congressional debate over the tariff, and Congress produced a tariff bill that raised rates for many goods.

Progressive Republicans such as Senator William E Borah of Idaho were outraged when Hoover signed the tariff act, and Hoover's relations with that wing of the party never recovered.

Herbert Hoover viewed the weak European economy as a major cause of economic troubles in the United States.

The Herbert Hoover Moratorium was warmly received in Europe and the United States, but Germany remained on the brink of defaulting on its loans.

Democrats positioned the program as a kinder alternative to Herbert Hoover's alleged apathy towards the unemployed, despite Herbert Hoover's belief that such programs were the responsibility of state and local governments.

The economy continued to worsen, with unemployment rates nearing 23 percent in early 1932, and Herbert Hoover finally heeded calls for more direct federal intervention.

The RFC saved numerous businesses from failure, but it failed to stimulate commercial lending as much as Herbert Hoover had hoped, partly because it was run by conservative bankers unwilling to make riskier loans.

In late 1931, Herbert Hoover proposed a tax plan to increase tax revenue by 30 percent, resulting in the passage of the Revenue Act of 1932.

Herbert Hoover believed that African Americans and other races could improve themselves with education and individual initiative.

Herbert Hoover continued to pursue the lily-white strategy, removing African Americans from positions of leadership in the Republican Party in an attempt to end the Democratic Party's dominance in the South.

The Herbert Hoover Administration began a campaign to prosecute illegal immigrants in the United States, which most strongly affected Mexican Americans, especially those living in Southern California.

Herbert Hoover reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs to limit exploitation of Native Americans.

On taking office, Herbert Hoover urged Americans to obey the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act, which had established Prohibition across the United States.

Herbert Hoover had hoped that the commission's public report would buttress his stance in favor of Prohibition, but the report criticized the enforcement of the Volstead Act and noted the growing public opposition to Prohibition.

Herbert Hoover did not completely refrain from the use of the military in Latin American affairs; he thrice threatened intervention in the Dominican Republic, and he sent warships to El Salvador to support the government against a left-wing revolution.

Herbert Hoover placed a priority on disarmament, which he hoped would allow the United States to shift money from the military to domestic needs.

At the 1932 World Disarmament Conference, Herbert Hoover urged further cutbacks in armaments and the outlawing of tanks and bombers, but his proposals were not adopted.

The Herbert Hoover administration deplored the invasion, but sought to avoid antagonizing the Japanese, fearing that taking too strong a stand would weaken the moderate forces in the Japanese government and alienate a potential ally against the Soviet Union, which he saw as a much greater threat.

Herbert Hoover sent US Army forces led by General Douglas MacArthur to the protests.

The Republican expectations were so bleak that Herbert Hoover faced no serious opposition for re-nomination at the 1932 Republican National Convention.

Herbert Hoover proposed a new constitutional amendment that was vague on particulars.

Herbert Hoover originally planned to make only one or two major speeches and to leave the rest of the campaigning to proxies, as sitting presidents had traditionally done.

However, encouraged by Republican pleas and outraged by Democratic claims, Herbert Hoover entered the public fray.

Besides having his train and motorcades pelted with eggs and rotten fruit, he was often heckled while speaking, and on several occasions, the Secret Service halted attempts to hurt Herbert Hoover, including capturing one man nearing Herbert Hoover carrying sticks of dynamite, and another already having removed several spikes from the rails in front of the president's train.

Herbert Hoover won 39.7 percent of the popular vote, a plunge of 26 percentage points from his result in the 1928 election.

Herbert Hoover departed from Washington in March 1933, bitter at his election loss and continuing unpopularity.

Herbert Hoover closely followed national events after leaving public office, becoming a constant critic of Franklin Roosevelt.

Herbert Hoover described the New Deal's National Recovery Administration and Agricultural Adjustment Administration as "fascistic", and he called the 1933 Banking Act a "move to gigantic socialism".

Only 58 when he left office, Herbert Hoover held out hope for another term as president throughout the 1930s.

At the 1936 Republican National Convention, Herbert Hoover's speech attacking the New Deal was well received, but the nomination went to Kansas Governor Alf Landon.

Herbert Hoover was active in the isolationist America First Committee.

Herbert Hoover rejected Roosevelt's offers to help coordinate relief in Europe, but, with the help of old friends from the CRB, helped establish the Commission for Polish Relief.

In December 1939, sympathetic Americans led by Herbert Hoover formed the Finnish Relief Fund to donate money to aid Finnish civilians and refugees after the Soviet Union had started the Winter War by attacking Finland, which had outraged Americans.

Herbert Hoover did not pursue the presidential nomination at the 1944 Republican National Convention, and, at the request of Republican nominee Thomas E Dewey, refrained from campaigning during the general election.

In 1945, Hoover advised President Harry S Truman to drop the United States' demand for the unconditional surrender of Japan because of the high projected casualties of the planned invasion of Japan, although Hoover was unaware of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb.

Herbert Hoover favored the United Nations in principle, but he opposed granting membership to the Soviet Union and other Communist states.

Herbert Hoover viewed the Soviet Union to be as morally repugnant as Nazi Germany and supported the efforts of Richard Nixon and others to expose Communists in the United States.

Herbert Hoover took the pension even though he did not need the money, possibly to avoid embarrassing Truman, whose precarious financial status played a role in the law's enactment.

Herbert Hoover wrote several books during his retirement, including The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson, in which he strongly defended Wilson's actions at the Paris Peace Conference.

Herbert Hoover faced three major illnesses during the last two years of his life, including an August 1962 operation in which a growth on his large intestine was removed.

Herbert Hoover died on October 20,1964, in New York City following massive internal bleeding.

Herbert Hoover was honored with a state funeral in which he lay in state in the United States Capitol rotunda.

Herbert Hoover was the last surviving member of the Harding and Coolidge Cabinets.

John Nance Garner was the only person in Herbert Hoover's United States presidential line of succession he did not outlive.

Herbert Hoover was extremely unpopular when he left office after the 1932 election, and his historical reputation would not begin to recover until the 1970s.

However, Hamilton notes that Herbert Hoover was politically inept and failed to recognize the severity of the Great Depression.

Nicholas Lemann writes that Herbert Hoover has been remembered "as the man who was too rigidly conservative to react adeptly to the Depression, as the hapless foil to the great Franklin Roosevelt, and as the politician who managed to turn a Republican country into a Democratic one".

Biographer Glen Jeansonne writes that Herbert Hoover was "one of the most extraordinary Americans of modern times," adding that Herbert Hoover "led a life that was a prototypical Horatio Alger story, except that Horatio Alger stories stop at the pinnacle of success".

Racist remarks and racial humor was common at the time, but Herbert Hoover never indulged in them while President and deliberate discrimination was anathema to him; he thought of himself as a friend to Blacks and an advocate for their progress.

Herbert Hoover's Rapidan fishing camp in Virginia, which he donated to the government in 1933, is a National Historic Landmark within the Shenandoah National Park.

The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, built in 1919 in Stanford, California, is the official residence of the president of Stanford University, and a National Historic Landmark.

Herbert Hoover has been memorialized in the names of several things, including the Herbert Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and numerous elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States.

Herbert Hoover was inducted into the National Mining Hall of Fame in 1988.

Herbert Hoover's wife was inducted into the hall in 1990.

Herbert Hoover was inducted into the Australian Prospectors and Miners' Hall of Fame in the category Directors and Management.

Herbert Hoover was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Charles University in Prague and University of Helsinki in March 1938.