I.

Introduction

Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), 31st president of the United States (1929-1933), who held office during the early part of the Great Depression and presided over the transition from a business-managed economy to the government intervention of the New Deal.

Hoover was born on August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa. His parents and most of his close relatives were rural Quakers, an influence that was decisive and lifelong. Entering Stanford University in that institution's first year, Hoover studied geology and mining. There he met Lou Henry, then the only woman geology student attending Stanford, who became his wife in 1897.

Managing and reorganizing mining properties in Western Australia and China (where he and Mrs Hoover endured the siege of Tianjin during the Boxer Rebellion) and elsewhere, Hoover was a millionaire by the time he was 40 years old.