Primarily remembered in history for being president when the great stock market crash occurred seven months after he took office in October 1929 and during the onset of the Great Depression, few know his fascinating story before becoming president. I was at the University of Iowa on business a decade or so ago and had a few hours to to kill, so I drove a few miles away to see Hoover's presidential library at his birthplace in the tiny community of West Branch, Iowa (he was born there on August 10, 1874). I was very surprised to learn things I never knew about Hoover's pre-presidential life and career.
- He was born to Quaker parents in West Branch.
- Both of Hoover's parents passed away by the time he was eleven, so he was sent to Oregon to be raised by an uncle.
- The uncle was well-educated and prominent in his community, so set high expectations for Hoover.
- Though never completing high school, he was admitted to the first class at Stanford University.
- He graduated from Stanford with a geology degree and became well-know and wealthy in the field by developing gold mines in Austrilia and China (where he and his wife were temporarily trapped during the Boxer Rebellion).
- He later made a fortune and traveled the world as a mining consultant before the outbreak of World War I.
- The world war gave Hoover the opportunity to become one of the great humanitarians of the 20th Century -- leading efforts to rescue Americans stranded in Europe by the war and save thousands of lives on the verge of starvation in Belgium.
- Hoover was politically non-partisan when Pres. Wilson appointed him to head the U.S. Food Agency to help regulate food supplies and prices distorted by the war.
- Both parties courted Hoover, but in the election of 1920 he supported Warren G. Harding's candidacy and eventually served in the 1920s as Secretary of Commerce under Pres. Harding and Coolidge.
- While commerce secretary, he was instrumental in supporting the development of the radio as the emerging national media and early commercial air travel.
- In 1927, he was acclaimed for leading the federal government's successful response to the Great Mississippi River Flood of that year.
- He only sought and accepted the Republican nomination for the presidency in the campaign of 1928 after incumbent Pres. Calvin Coolidge decided not to run, and then rushing his Democratic opponent Al Smith in that election.
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