ABSTRACT
Herbert Clark Hoover, or 'Bertie' as he was known to his family, was born in West Branch, Iowa, on August 10, 1874. Hoover was graduated in 1895 and the following year left for a mining job in Australia, where he began a highly successful career in mining. He next accompanied President Woodrow Wilson to Paris, where Hoover acted as head of the European Relief Program and as one of Wilson's economic advisers at the Paris Peace Conference. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was maintained and expanded by the New Deal; indeed, many of the concepts held by Hoover became part of the New Deal. Hoover's experience and philosophy limited the extent to which he could involve the government in the lives of citizens. Hoover lived long enough to see himself rehabilitated in public esteem. He advised many presidents, and his enormous managerial skills were again used for the national good under Harry S Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
