The “Great Humanitarian”: Herbert Hoover, the Relief of Belgium, and the Reconstruction of Europe after War I

On August 10, 1914, Herbert Hoover turned forty years old. A prosperous American mining engineer living in London, he was at the pinnacle of his profession, with business interests on every continent except Antarctica. He was also restless, confiding to a friend that “just making money isn't enough.” He wanted, he said, to “get in the big game somewhere”—the “big game” of public life.