She became a vice president of the National Amateur Athletic Federation in the s with a challenge to organize a women's division. She addressed philosophic differences over competition vs.
Although she did not give many speeches or grant any interviews, she was the first First Lady to speak on the radio. She also caused a small controversy by inviting the wife of an African American congressman, Jesse DePriest, for tea at the White House.
The southern press condemned Mrs. Hoover for this gesture, and the incident made her more wary of the press. She never returned to Iowa again. When the Hoovers left Washington, D. On January 7, , she suffered an acute heart attack from which she did not recover. Over the course of his career as a mining engineer and businessman, Hoover's intellect and understanding of the world matured considerably.
Hoover was raised a Quaker and although he rarely went to Meeting as an adult, he internalized that faith's belief in the power of the individual, the importance of freedom, and the value of "conscientious work" and charity. Hoover also applied the ethos of engineering to the world in general, believing that scientific expertise, when employed thoughtfully and properly, led to human progress.
Hoover worked comfortably in a capitalist economy but believed in labor's right to organize and hoped that cooperation between labor and management and among competitors might come to characterize economic relations.
During these years, Hoover repeatedly made known to friends his desire for public service. Politically, Hoover identified with the progressive wing of the Republican Party, supporting Theodore Roosevelt's third-party bid in World War I brought Hoover to prominence in American politics and thrust him into the international spotlight.
In London when the war broke out, he was asked by the U. Germany's devastating invasion of Belgium led Hoover to pool his money with several wealthy friends to organize the Committee for the Relief of Belgium. Working without direct government support, Hoover raised millions of dollars for food and medicine to help desperate Belgians. Food Administration. Hoover performed quite admirably, guiding the effort to conserve resources and supplies needed for the war and to feed America's European allies.
Hoover even became a household name during the war; nearly all Americans knew that the verb "to Hooverize" meant the rationing of household materials.
In this capacity, Hoover channeled 34 million tons of American food, clothing, and supplies to war-torn Europe, aiding people in twenty nations. Because of Hoover's knowledge of world affairs, Wilson relied him at the Versailles Peace Conference and as director of the President's Supreme Economic Council in This privately endowed organization later became the Hoover Institution, devoted to the study of peace and war.
No isolationist, Hoover supported American participation in the League of Nations. He believed, though, that Wilson's stubborn idealism led Congress to reject American participation in the League. In , Hoover emerged as a contender for the Republican presidential nomination. His run was blocked, however, by fellow a Californian, Senator Hiram Johnson, who objected to Hoover's support for the League. Republican Warren Harding won the White House in and appointed Hoover as his secretary of commerce, a position that Hoover retained under Harding's successor, President Calvin Coolidge.
Under Hoover's leadership, the Department of Commerce became as influential and important a government agency as the Departments of State and Treasury.
Hoover encouraged research into measures designed to counteract harmful business cycles. An avid Chinese linguist and geology scholar, she was also the first First Lady to make regular nationwide radio broadcasts. Admirably equipped to preside at the White House, Lou Henry Hoover brought to it long experience as wife of a man eminent in public affairs at home and abroad.
She had shared his interests since they met in a geology lab at Leland Stanford University. Born in Iowa, in , she grew up there for ten years. Then her father, Charles D.
Henry, decided that the climate of southern California would favor the health of his wife, Florence. He took his daughter on camping trips in the hills—her greatest pleasures in her early teens. He came from a Quaker background and worked as a mining engineer before becoming a president. In fact, before being nominated for the presidency, he had no elected-official experience.
He was known for leading humanitarian efforts in Belgium, heading the U. Food Administration, and serving as secretary of commerce under two presidents. Hoover finished his early schooling through night classes and then went on to attend Stanford University the year it opened.
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