Et cetera : Iowans Making History: Herbert Hoover

Chad Brown has agreed to share with you bits about Iowans who have made history! These will be a bit of pleasure reading, and enjoyable to read. Feel free to add any comments below or bits of history on the people that you see, we can never learn enough about the people that have gone before us! These aren't meant to be all inclusive bios, but just some light reading with a bit of educational value! Welcome Chad!

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Iowa produced one president: Herbert Hoover. Born in West Branch, Iowa in 1874, Hoover was orphaned in 1884. He didn't live very long in Iowa as he was moved from uncle to uncle. He graduated from Stanford and became a very wealthy man by accumulating a personal fortune of $4 million (over $100 million in today's money) by the age of 40. World War I erupted and the Germans occupied Belgium. The occupied territory soon found its people starving. Hoover headed the effort to feed the starving people of Belgium.

World War I ended in 1918 and many throughout the continent had been displaced, and 400 million Europeans faced starvation. Hoover headed efforts to feed starving Europe and saved millions of lives. Ironically, he was viewed by the World for much of his life as a great humanitarian. He served the administrations of Harding and Coolidge and then won the presidency, at the worst possible time, in 1928.

Hoover took office in March, 1929. Timing could not have been worse. The stock market crashed that October, before any of Hoover's policies had taken effect. He certainly was not responsible for the Depression, but he was deemed aloof and uncaring (even though the opposite was true). He faced an uphill battle for re-election against Franklin Delano Roosevelt and lost the election. Many still remember him as the President who didn't do enough to help the needy get through the Depression, but his humanitarian successes go largely forgotten. Herbert Hoover lived until 1964 when he died at the ripe old age of 90.