Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the thirty-first President of the United States (1929–1933). Besides his political career, Hoover was a professional mining engineer and author. As the United States Secretary of Commerce in the 1920s under Presidents Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he promoted government intervention under the rubric “economic modernization”. In the presidential election of 1928 Hoover easily won the Republican nomination despite having no previous elective office experience. To date Hoover is the last cabinet secretary to be directly elected President of the United States. The nation was prosperous and optimistic, leading to a landslide for Hoover over Democrat Al Smith, whom many voters distrusted because of his Roman Catholicism.
Hoover deeply believed in the Efficiency Movement (a major component of the Progressive Era), arguing that a technical solution existed for every social and economic problem. That position was challenged by the Stock market crash of 1929 that took place less than 8 months after taking office, and the Depression that followed it which gained momentum in 1930. Hoover tried to combat the Depression with volunteer efforts and government action, none of which produced economic recovery during his term. The consensus among historians is that Hoover’s defeat in the 1932 election was caused primarily by failure to end the downward spiral into deep Depression, compounded by popular opposition to prohibition. Other electoral liabilities were Hoover’s lack of charisma in relating to voters, and his poor skills in working with politicians.
Hoover was born in on August 10, 1874 in West Branch, Iowa. He was the first President to be born west of the Mississippi River. His father, Jesse, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner, of German (Pfautz, Wehmeyer) and German-Swiss (Huber, Burkhart) descent. His mother, Hulda (Minthorn) Hoover, was of English and Irish (probably Scots-Irish) descent. Both were Quakers. His father died in 1880, and his mother in 1884, leaving Hoover an orphan at the age of 9. After a brief stay with one of his grandmothers in Kingsley, Iowa, Herbert lived for the next 18 months with his uncle Allen Hoover in West Branch. In November 1885, he went to live in Newberg, Oregon with his uncle John Minthorn, whose own son had died the year before. For two and a half years, Herbert attended Friends Pacific Academy (now George Fox University), then subsequently worked as office boy in his uncle’s real estate office in Salem. Though he did not attend high school, the young Hoover attended night school and learned bookkeeping, typing, and math.[1]
Hoover entered Stanford University in 1891, the first year of the new California college. None of the first students were required to pay tuition.[1] Hoover claimed to be the first student ever at Stanford, by virtue of having been the first person in the first class to sleep in the dormitory.[2] While at the university, he was the student manager of both the baseball and football teams, and was a part of the inaugural Big Game versus rival California (Stanford won).[2] Hoover graduated in 1895 with a degree in geology.[3]
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