Herbert Hoover

Herbert Clark Hoover

• School Stanford University

• Born August 10, 1874 in West Branch, IA USA
• Died October 20, 1964 in New York, NY USA

"I had a better year than he did." - Babe Ruth's famous quote regarding why he was asking for more money in 1931 than President Herbert Hoover earned

Herbert Hoover was a tremendously-famous humanitarian before he became a politician. He was a big baseball fan and threw out the first pitch at the 1929, 1930, and 1931 World Series openers. It is said he played shortstop as a youngster.

He was in the first class at the new Stanford University, graduating in 1895 before the first major leaguer from Stanford, Charlie Swindells, attended there. He was shortstop on the freshman baseball team at Stanford before a finger injury ended his college career.

He was President of the United States from 1929 to 1933. His presidency coincided with the Great Depression, and he became infamous for his inaction in the face of growing economic disaster following the stock exchange collapse of October 1929. His last name became associated with "hoovervilles", shanty towns built to accommodate those rendered and unemployed and homeless by the economic conditions. More positively, he also gave his name to the Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River, one of the largest public works projects undertaken by the Federal Government, whose construction began during his administration, but had also been made possible by a interstate compact which got its start when he was Secretary of Commerce in 1922.

Babe Ruth was sometimes active in presidential campaigns, and campaigned against Hoover in 1928. In spite of that, he was photographed with Hoover in 1933 after Hoover left office.

"I shall tell my doctors baseball has more curative powers than all their medicine." - Herbert Hoover

Related Sites

• White House Biography
• Wikipedia Entry
• Internet Public Library POTUS Page

Preceded by Calvin Coolidge

United States President 1929 – 1933

Succeeded by Franklin Delano Roosevelt