Hoover Goes to Belgium

Herbert Hoover is best known as the 31st president of the United States, a role in which he was much criticised. Glen S. Jeansonne reveals an earlier, more successful episode of extraordinary humanitarianism.

Herbert Hoover as head of the Food Administration, 1918

During the First World War Herbert Hoover, later to become the 31st president of the United States, earned the title ‘the Great Humanitarian’ and created the greatest private philanthropic organisation in history, saving an entire nation. That memory has now dimmed, yet it set remarkable precedents.

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