Herbert Hoover

I

Introduction

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), 31st president of the United States (1929-1933). Hoover was a highly successful mining engineer and a relief administrator in war-ravaged countries. His election in 1928 as president won the overwhelming approval of the American people, yet within two years Hoover was condemned by most as a reactionary unable or unwilling to soften the effects of the Great Depression. In fact Hoover was the first president to use the federal government to fight the effects of a depression, even though he was not successful, which helped prepare the country for the government intervention of the New Deal policies of President Franklin Roosevelt when he succeeded Hoover in 1933.

II

Early Life

Herbert Clark Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1874. He was the son of Jesse Clark and Huldah Minthorn Hoover, both of whom were Quakers. His father worked as a blacksmith and storekeeper, and died when the boy was six. His mother died two years later. Relatives cared for Herbert, his brother Theodore, and his sister, May.

When Herbert was ten, his uncle took him to live in Newberg, a Quaker settlement in Oregon's Willamette Valley, where he worked on a farm and attended school. Later he worked as office boy in a land settlement business in nearby Salem, and studied mathematics in a business school. A chance meeting with an engineer in Salem resulted in his determination to study engineering.

A professor of mathematics, Joseph Swain, helped Hoover gain admittance to the new Leland Stanford Junior University in Palo Alto, California. In 1891, Hoover was admitted as a freshman to Stanford's first class. He supported himself by typing, operating a laundry agency, and working as a secretary for a geology professor. In 1895, Hoover received his bachelor's degree in mining engineering.

---

---

III

Early Career

In 1896 and 1897, Hoover worked for a leading engineer in San Francisco, California. On his recommendation the 23-year-old Hoover got a job with a London mining firm, Bewick, Moreing and Company, to introduce California methods to the company's gold mines in western Australia. In Australia, Hoover recommended that the firm purchase an outstandingly productive gold mine, and his salary rose quickly. He turned from technical work to administration, bargaining with labor and negotiating with the Australian government. The mining company then transferred Hoover to China.

During his senior year at Stanford, Hoover had met Iowa-born Lou Henry, a young woman who was also studying geology at Stanford. On his way to China in 1899 he stopped in California and they married. The couple had two sons, Herbert, Jr., and Allan Henry.

A

Foreign Assignments

Hoover became chief engineer in the Chinese government's imperial bureau of mines. In China a group known in the West as the Boxers opposed European and Japanese influence in that country. In 1900 these Chinese nationalists launched the Boxer Uprising, an attack upon foreigners living in Beijing, and the Hoovers were nearby in Tianjin (Tientsin) when the rebellion broke out. The foreign residents took refuge in their district of the city, and Hoover and fellow engineers built a protective wall against the attackers. He and his wife risked their lives to transport food and medical supplies to the wounded and besieged.

Later in 1900 the Hoovers went to England. There he was given a one-fifth interest in Bewick, Moreing and Company, which then possessed gold, silver, tin, copper, coal, and lead mines in Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, and Nevada. They also owned a turquoise mine in Egypt. Hoover became a world-renowned consulting engineer, accepting commissions to revive unproductive mines. By 1914 he was managing director or chief consulting engineer in a score of mining companies, and he was becoming a wealthy man.

	More from Encarta
	•  Important Notice: MSN Encarta to be discontinued. Learn more. •  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain