![HOOVER, Herbert (1874-1964), President. Autograph letter signed ("H. C. Hoover") to Bewick, Moreing & Co., 31 March 1909 [sic for 1910]. 1 page, 8vo, receipt stamps and dockets along top.](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2005/NYR/2005_NYR_01685_0187_000(110645).jpg?w=1)
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HOOVER, Herbert (1874-1964), President. Autograph letter signed ("H. C. Hoover") to Bewick, Moreing & Co., 31 March 1909 [sic for 1910]. 1 page, 8vo, receipt stamps and dockets along top.
ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN EXAMPLES OF A HOOVER AUTOGRAPH LETTER. "Gentlemen: With regard to the Oroya Leonosa and Oroya Exploration Company directorships I would be obliged if you could see your way to approve my accepting directorships on these companies in the terms of yours re Oroya Links." Hoover's career from 1914 onward is well known and well-documented. That's when he began his great career as a philanthropist, creating a highly effective relief organization - an NGO in today's lingo - to help feed refugees in Belgium and other European countries in the wake of the terrible destruction of World War I. But for the previous 20 years he was an unknown mining executive, living mostly abroad and leaving a scant "paper trail." His business career was a real-life Horatio Alger story: an orphan at the age of 9, an uncle helped him gain admission to Stanford University, from which he graduated with a degree in geology in 1895. His first job out of college was as a manual laborer for a mining company, but his intelligence and drive soon whisked him up the ranks. He quickly started managing projects in every quarter of the globe, moving year to year to Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, southern Africa, India, Burma, Germany and Russia. "He...lived a large part of his mature life on ocean liners," historian Richard Hofstadter wrote.
In addition to being a skilled engineer, Hoover proved a shrewd businessman, acquiring interests in various companies - such as Bewick, Moreing here - and compiling a multi-million fortune by the time he was forty years old. This material stability put him in position to respond as he did to the disasters of 1914. Based in London at the outbreak of hostilities, Hoover was able to draw on a global network of business and financial connections to make his relief work a success. It was the beginning of one of the most remarkable and useful public careers in American history. This is a rare artifact from that crucial chapter in Hoover's life.
ONE OF THE EARLIEST KNOWN EXAMPLES OF A HOOVER AUTOGRAPH LETTER. "Gentlemen: With regard to the Oroya Leonosa and Oroya Exploration Company directorships I would be obliged if you could see your way to approve my accepting directorships on these companies in the terms of yours re Oroya Links." Hoover's career from 1914 onward is well known and well-documented. That's when he began his great career as a philanthropist, creating a highly effective relief organization - an NGO in today's lingo - to help feed refugees in Belgium and other European countries in the wake of the terrible destruction of World War I. But for the previous 20 years he was an unknown mining executive, living mostly abroad and leaving a scant "paper trail." His business career was a real-life Horatio Alger story: an orphan at the age of 9, an uncle helped him gain admission to Stanford University, from which he graduated with a degree in geology in 1895. His first job out of college was as a manual laborer for a mining company, but his intelligence and drive soon whisked him up the ranks. He quickly started managing projects in every quarter of the globe, moving year to year to Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, southern Africa, India, Burma, Germany and Russia. "He...lived a large part of his mature life on ocean liners," historian Richard Hofstadter wrote.
In addition to being a skilled engineer, Hoover proved a shrewd businessman, acquiring interests in various companies - such as Bewick, Moreing here - and compiling a multi-million fortune by the time he was forty years old. This material stability put him in position to respond as he did to the disasters of 1914. Based in London at the outbreak of hostilities, Hoover was able to draw on a global network of business and financial connections to make his relief work a success. It was the beginning of one of the most remarkable and useful public careers in American history. This is a rare artifact from that crucial chapter in Hoover's life.