For most people, the idea that Britain and its empire helped mold Herbert Hoover into a public servant and later US President seems preposterous. In the United States, Hoover is not among the presidents cited as “best” and indeed, he is most remembered for his failures: his ordering of the removal of the 1932 Bonus Army of veterans from their encampments in Washington, DC, and his inability to muster Congressional support for policies that might ameliorate the effects of the Great Depression. In fact, his signing of the disastrous Smoot-Hawley Tariff in 1930 deepened an already terrible economic crisis. By 1932, Hoover was no longer seen in the role he had crafted during and after the First World War – the great humanitarian.
Some of Hoover’s problems during his presidency arose precisely because of his career in Britain and its empire, his lack of elected experience in the halls of Congress or in state politics, and his entrée into public life in London in 1914. It turns out that making decisions and acting in appointed roles, especially during the extraordinary times of war and its aftermath, do not actually translate into an ability to manage the experienced and elected members of the US Congress. If one looks at the history of the US presidency, it is rare to rise to that office without one of two things on the resumé: 1) serving in elected office at state or national levels, or 2) serving as a military commander. So where did Hoover gain his political experience and his passion for public life? It came in Britain and in relation to a long Anglo-American relationship that served as a testing ground for Hoover’s ambition. While this tutelage gained him personal wealth, an international reputation, and a lifelong ambition, it did not necessarily equip him with the skills of negotiation needed in Washington, DC. Most presidents with Hoover’s background struggle with the very things that made them successful: surrounding themselves with a coterie of loyalists with a singular vision; ruling by fiat rather than consensus; and impatience.
Britain created Hoover twice – first, in his professional career as mining engineer and entrepreneur, and second in his role as “Chief” of the largest humanitarian operation in the world to date, the Commission for the Relief of Belgium, and its successor, the American Relief Administration. This personal journey of Hoover’s mirrored the national shifts taking place in terms of Britain’s global presence. Over the course of their long relationship, the British had accompanied Americans on ventures and served as mentors and investors as the United States established its place in the world. However, by the 1920s, that alignment was shifting as Americans competed with them for markets, political influence, and alliances.
Hoover and his associates used Britain, particularly London, as a base during and after the First World War for the creation of fledgling war relief agencies that became the models for later US and UN enterprises. In a sense, the United States had now assumed the mantle of authority from its former colonizers and would save Europe from itself. Despite its own expansionist history, American leaders depicted Europeans as the true imperialists and themselves as republican internationalists, setting up an important and lasting vision for the United States in its presence overseas. Hoover, the architect of much of the US intervention explained this difference in his memoirs, amplifying the distinction: "The New World nations had no Empires or spirit of Empires." He also reminded readers that the United States had "freed Cuba and the Philippines from Spain." This revisionist history belied ongoing American imperial projects.
Hoover’s inability to truly see US imperialism may have been born during his employment in imperial settings. While he first worked in the American West as a young geologist and mining engineer, his real opportunities came from employment in the British Empire and with London-based firms. Hoover did stints in western Australia’s gold fields, which he described as being unforgiving, both in terms of climate and employment. Undoubtedly this toughened him and taught him survival skills in a cut-throat industry. He followed that experience with another venture in China, living there during the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion and then rising to the level of partner in the British company, Bewick, Moreing and Company. His new employers had holdings throughout the world: South Africa, China, Australia, Canada, Sinai Peninsula, and the United States. Hoover, as the man on the ground for the company, traveled as part of this imperial network, learning his administrative and logistical skills along the way. By 1914, Hoover had a reputation for financial wizardry – he could fix ailing companies and make profits for those mining firms’ directors. He had lived and worked in London for more than a decade by this time, and at age forty, he was wealthy and ready for new adventures – public service became his new interest and later lifelong vocation.
In a strange twist, Hoover’s public service as an international humanitarian came through relief to his fellow American citizens. In August 1914, a group of stranded, desperate Americans invaded the lobby of the Savoy Hotel in London seeking help to get back home. When Britain had declared war on Germany on August 5, approximately 100,000 US citizens were holidaying in Europe in addition to the many who had made temporary or permanent homes there. Despite American official neutrality, its citizens found themselves stuck in nations across Europe in the confusion of the war's outbreak. Their letters of credit no longer had value, their currency was worthless, and transport appeared to be non-existent. Most rushed to American embassies and consulates for help, but these small offices were ill-equipped to meet the demand.
The American business and diplomatic community in London answered these pleas for help by creating a number of impromptu committees. One of those groups, the Committee of American Residents in London for Assistance of American Travelers, formed on 6 August and set out to control relief and repatriation of citizens stuck in London. Hoover, although at this point an unlikely and inexperienced man for the position, served as chair of this group, which was largely composed of wealthy Americans living in the city. He was ably assisted by his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, who performed much of the behind-the-scenes labor with other women. From its headquarters in the Savoy Hotel, this committee of volunteers aided Americans with immediate relief and logistical help. Hoover's seemingly indefatigable labors for the stranded travelers masked his desire to control the process entirely, as he considered many of the other possible leaders ineffectual. This single-mindedness paid off in just a few weeks. By mid-August, Hoover's committee had assumed responsibility for all London relief to Americans, aided by private donations and even a Congressional appropriation. Hoover described his efforts as both monumental and mundane, noting in his memoirs that his group helped the wealthy and famous as well as the destitute. At the time and in subsequent comments about this emergency help, Hoover insisted that the whole experience gave him insight into the unique American spirit and that it launched his interest in public service. He began to see himself as a “master of emergencies,” a role he embraced.
By the time their work subsided in October, this committee had directly assisted more than forty thousand Americans and provided informal aid to many others. Hoover's career as a voluntary humanitarian and a champion of the displaced had truly begun. Before his work with tourists had even ended, Hoover embarked on the initial negotiations that made him a household name in the United States and Europe, as chair of a new entity, unique in its construction and its mission: the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). Hoover was already in London, and his success with American refugees emboldened him to seek other opportunities to use his supervisory skills and expertise in materials management and logistics to tackle intractable human problems the war created. Unknowingly, the CRB and its unlikely and inexperienced director would establish a lasting model for US aid while creating a coterie of American relief experts. For Hoover, it was the start of a forty-year career in public service – as the director of international relief organizations, as US Food Administrator during World War I, as Secretary of Commerce (1921-1928), and as US President (1928-1932).
Later in his life, he served again under President Harry S. Truman in appointed committees to investigate postwar famine in Europe and to reorganize the federal government. What began for Hoover as a British imperial career and a life in London finance circles eventually took him to the White House in an unlikely turn of events.
Tammy M. Proctor is Distinguished Professor of History at Utah State University and co-editor of the Journal of British Studies. This piece is partially drawn from her forthcoming book, Saving Europe: First World War Relief and American Identity (Oxford, 2025).
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