Herbert Hoover was an American engineer, businessman, and politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933.

When Hoover was 6 years old, his father died of a heart attack while suffering a bout of pneumonia. A little more than three years later, Hoover's mother died from pneumonia and typhoid fever, which left young "Bertie" an orphan at the age of 9.

With the U.S. mobilizing for World War I, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration in 1917. Hoover's chief goal as "food czar" was to provide supplies to the Allied Powers, but he also sought to stabilize domestic prices and to prevent domestic shortages. He established set days for people to avoid eating specified foods and save them for soldiers' rations: meatless Mondays, wheatless Wednesdays, and "when in doubt, eat potatoes". These policies were dubbed "Hooverizing" by government publicists, in spite of Hoover's continual orders that publicity should not mention him by name.

"If a man has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty, he is not worth much," said Hoover, who rose from humble origins to become a millionaire several times over.

After graduating from Stanford in 1895 with a geology degree, Hoover took an engineering job with the British mining firm of Bewick, Moreing and Company. He traveled the world locating lucrative mineral deposits, and by the age of 27, he had become one of the firm's four partners. After leaving Bewick, Moreing, Hoover specialized in rejuvenating troubled mining operations, taking a share of the profits in exchange for his technical and financial expertise, earning a reputation as a "doctor of sick mines".

Hoover won the presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1928 Republican National Convention.

When he ran for president in 1928, his campaign decided that a photo of Hoover with his dog might make him seem more personable and approachable. Thousands of copies were distributed of a smiling Hoover holding up the paws of his Belgian shepherd, King Tut, as if they were both begging for votes.

Hoover maintained polling leads throughout the 1928 campaign and easily defeated Democrat Al Smith on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote and 444 of 531 electoral votes.

The stock market crashed shortly after Hoover took office, and the Great Depression became the central issue of his presidency. Hoover pursued a variety of policies in an attempt to lift the economy, but he failed to recognize the severity of the crisis, believing it would only be a short recession similar to the Depression of 1920-21. As a result, he opposed directly involving the federal government in relief efforts, allowing the crisis to worsen. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found themselves homeless, and began congregating in shanty towns--dubbed "Hoovervilles"--that began to appear across the country.

The election of Charles Curtis as vice president made history because he was the first Native American to hold the post. On his mother's side, Curtis was a descendant of chief White Plume of the Kaw Nation and chief Pawhuska of the Osage. He decorated his office with Native American artifacts and posed for pictures by wearing Indian headdresses.