“Did you know Herbert Hoover was the one who standardized screws, board lengths and much more for industry?” my husband asked recently.
“Herbert Hoover? The United States president on Black Friday in 1929? That president initiated industrial standards?” I was skeptical. I soon learned he did that and much more.
Hoover, born 150 years ago on August 10, served as Secretary of the Commerce under both Presidents Harding and Coolidge. There he used his engineering background to organize the country. At the time of his appointment, he was told, “You only have to come in two or three days a week.”
That was not Hoover’s style. He expanded his role as Secretary of Commerce so much that some dubbed him Secretary of Commerce and under-secretary of every other department. He impacted the development of air travel, radio and industry and led the federal response to the 1927 Mississippi Flood. He had the vision, energy and ability to oversee any course he set.
Very impressive for a boy orphaned before his 10th birthday. His uncle took him in and sent him to Stanford where he studied engineering. After a year at an entry level job in mining, he learned of an English company looking for an experienced man to serve in Australia looking for mines. Only 22, Hoover grew a beard, bought a suit worn by older men and landed the job. On his advice, the company paid a million dollars for a mine that ultimately profited them over $50 million.
When the company quickly promoted him to supervise mining in China, he cabled a marriage proposal to former college classmate Lou Harris. The day after their simple ceremony, they left for China. There he reorganized the ineptly managed mines. During the Boxer Rebellion he led the building of barricades.
For the next decade he traveled the world for the company before settling in England prior to World War I.
We recently visited the Hoover presidential museum in West Branch, Iowa. En route to the museum we listened to a 27 hour audio version of his biography by Kenneth Whyte. We learned that in England he began his public service when he set up an office in the Savoy Hotel to assist American citizens stranded in England after World War I began. He organized volunteers to provide small loans and arranged the Americans’ passage home. He sent his family back to the states, but Hoover stayed behind. He spent the next three years organizing food deliveries for Belgium families caught in the war zone.
Once the United States entered the war, Hoover returned to the U.S. where President Wilson appointed him to head the U.S. Food Administration during WWI. He initiated a volunteer program for citizens to save food and plant Victory gardens. A world map at the museum highlights dozens of areas around the world, including Russia, where this man with a plan delivered tons of food for millions of people. That probably best describes the Hoover I never learned about in history class. He could see a problem and its solution and make it happen.
As president, Hoover initiated the building of the Hoover dam, a project only discussed in previous decades. As president at the beginning of the Great Depression Hoover, his cabinet and the legislature tried many programs to turn the economic tide. Unfortunately, the long predicted market crash, along with widespread drought and a worldwide depression left a black mark beside his name.
It speaks highly of Hoover that every president, both Democrat and Republican, from President Wilson to President J.F. Kennedy (except FDR) consulted with him to reorganize the government or help during a food crisis. The same administrative skills and insights that equipped a 22 year old to succeed as a mining engineer worked everywhere around the globe for half a century. In hundreds of other ways, this orphan boy from a small town in Iowa left his mark that we feel every time we build a house, repair a car or even buy a gallon of milk. He made his fortune then he made a difference, even if few recognize it half a century after his death.