Herbert Hoover, the son of a Quaker blacksmith, was born in Iowa in 1874 and grew up in Oregon. He graduated from Stanford University as a mining engineer. His record of service abroad and at home as an engineer, administrator, and humanitarian spanned fifty years.

In 1900, he worked for a private corporation as engineer in China. The Boxer Rebellion broke out. Under heavy fire, his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, worked in the hospitals; he directed the building of barricades, and once he risked his life rescuing Chinese children.

When Germany declared war on France in 1914, Hoover was in London. The American Consul General asked him to help stranded tourists get home. In six weeks his committee helped 120,000 Americans return to the United States. Hoover worked to supply the citizens of Belgium when Germany invaded their country. When the United States entered the war, President Wilson asked Hoover to head the Food Administration. He kept the Allies fed while conserving food, and he avoided rationing. When the war ended, Hoover, as head of the American Relief Administration, organized shipments of food for millions of starving people in central Europe and Soviet Russia. He said that starving people should be fed no matter what their politics.

After serving as Secretary of Commerce under Presidents Harding and Coolidge, Hoover himself won election to the presidency. Unfortunately, the stock market crashed just after he became president. The crash and the Great Depression that followed were not his fault, but he got the blame. In the 1932 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt soundly defeated him.

Hoover's career did not end when he left the White House. He worked in Presidents Truman and Eisenhower's administrations. He also wrote many articles and books. He died in 1964 in New York City.