The Engineering of Herbert Hoover

This article offers a revisionist account of Herbert Hoover's career as a mining engineer, looking particularly at his activities in Australia and China where he first established his reputation and his fortune. The young Hoover went to Western Australia in 1897 to work for the British firm of Bewick, Moreing. Hoover's employers sent him to China in early 1899. He became a partner two years later and returned to Australia to direct Bewick, Moreing's operations there. After his return to London, he grew increasingly involved in financial dealings and gradually withdrew from the business of mining. Hoover's career as a mining engineer coincided with a period when the authority of engineers assumed a new significance; American mining engineers in particular became trusted experts. Hoover was one such engineer, although this article argues that his role was more ambiguous and compromised than earlier studies have acknowledged.