Hoover, Herbert Clark (1874-1964), was president when the United States was swept by the Great Depression. Hoover, a member of the Republican Party, had been a multimillionaire businessman and a successful public official before he became president. He entered the White House at a time of great prosperity in the United States. Americans expected him to lead them on to even better days. Then seven months after he took office, the stock market crashed. Soon after, the Great Depression began.
President Hoover and many business leaders believed that prosperity would soon return to the United States. To some people, he appeared to act slowly in the emergency. But Hoover was the first president to use the power of the federal government to fight a depression.
Hoover entered public life in 1914, after World War I began. He happened to be in London and accepted the task of distributing food to the hungry people of Belgium and northern France. President Woodrow Wilson then made him food administrator in the United States. For 19 months, Hoover supervised the production and distribution of food for American soldiers and civilians and for the nation's allies.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Hoover secretary of commerce. Hoover held this post until he ran for president in 1928. Hoover defeated Alfred E. Smith, the Democratic candidate, by the largest majority of electoral votes ever received by a candidate up to that time. Four years later, however, Franklin D. Roosevelt beat Hoover by an even larger majority of electoral votes.
Most people found Hoover shy and reserved. He had a quiet sense of humor but rarely laughed heartily. Hoover enjoyed fishing, hiking, and reading biographies and detective stories.
