Portal:Iowa

Portrait, 1928

Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, followed by post-war relief of Europe. As a member of the Republican Party, he served as the third United States secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928. His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression, and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as lackluster. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895. Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China. He rapidly became a wealthy mining engineer. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I, he organized and headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration. He became famous as his country's "food dictator". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the starving millions in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Hoover's wartime service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 U.S. presidential election. (Full article...)

• ... that for 19 years Tonya Burns had the only retired jersey number in Iowa State women's basketball history?
• ... that an Iowa TV station's prior decision to disaffiliate from the Fox network meant that The Simpsons were originally unseen in the Quad Cities?
• ... that American poet Edwin Ford Piper preserved 828 folk songs, most of which were from Iowa and Nebraska?
• ... that Laurie Schipper, who was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 2022, testified to support a woman who murdered her abusive husband?
• ... that Alice Ilgenfritz Jones was one of "Two Women of the West" from Iowa who wrote the 1893 feminist utopian novel Unveiling a Parallel?
• ... that an Iowa TV station operates from a former McDonald's restaurant?

• Date admitted to Union: December 28, 1846 (29th State)
• Demonym: Iowan
• Capital: Des Moines
• Elected state officers:
  • Governor: Kim Reynolds (R)
  • Lieutenant Governor: Adam Gregg (R)
  • Secretary of State: Paul Pate (R)
  • Auditor: Rob Sand (D)
  • Treasurer: Roby Smith (R)
  • Secretary of Agriculture: Mike Naig (R)
  • Attorney General: Brenna Bird (R)
• U.S. Senators:
  • Chuck Grassley (R)
  • Joni Ernst (R)
• U.S. Representatives:

1. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R)
2. Ashley Hinson (R)
3. Zach Nunn (R)
4. Randy Feenstra (R)

• Total area: 56,272 square miles (145,744 km²) (23rd most extensive state)
  • Land: 55,869 square miles (144,700 km²)
  • Water: 402 square miles (1,041 km²)
• Highest elevation: Hawkeye Point 1,670 feet (509 m) (42nd highest state)
• Mean elevation: 1,100 feet (335 m) (22nd highest state)
• Lowest elevation: Mississippi River 480 feet (146 m) (37th lowest state)
• Population (2022 estimate): 3,200,517 (32nd most populous state)
• Number of counties: 99 counties
• Number of municipalities: 947 municipalities
• Time zone: CST=UTC-06, CDT=UTC-05
• USPS code: IA
• ISO 3166 code: US-IA
• Adjacent states: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota
• State government website: Iowa.gov