Hoover Institution

A short history of the Hoover Institution

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Herbert Hoover’s 1919 letter to Professor Ephraim D. Adams, in which he confirms his offer of $50,000 to Stanford president Ray Lyman Wilbur with which to collect historical materials related to World War I. (Hoover Institution Records)

The Hoover Institution Archives, with its vast documentation on modern history, is a core component of the institution that Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) founded at his alma mater, Stanford University, in 1919. “The purpose of this institution is to promote peace. Its records stand as a challenge to those who promote war ” (August 1951). (Photo: Hoover Institution Public Affairs Office)

When World War I broke out in Europe in 1914, Hoover became deeply involved in relief efforts to help its civilian victims. His Commission for Relief in Belgium fed the population of Belgium and northern France during that war. In 1915 Hoover's good friend Professor Ephraim D. Adams suggested that he not only save the records of his relief organization but donate them to Stanford for the benefit of the students. Thus, in 1919, Hoover founded the Hoover Library, which has proved to be of immense importance to scholars throughout the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. (Hoover Institution Archives Poster Collection)

The archives, originally a repository for documentation on World War I, grew to encompass the records of the fascist, communist, and nationalist movements that precipitated World War II. When the university library no longer had space for its growing collections, Hoover raised funds for a separate building to house the library and archives. The tower was completed in June 1941. (Hoover Tower Lobby)

Herbert Hoover won the 1928 election to become the thirty-first president of the United States. (Banner on 11th floor of Hoover Tower)

Herbert Hoover, who was born in West Branch, Iowa, entered Stanford University’s first class in 1891 and graduated with a degree in geology in 1895. Hoover established several international relief organizations during World War I and was secretary of commerce during the Harding and Coolidge administrations. He became the thirty-first president of the United States in 1929. (Photo: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum)

Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover were married in 1899. Lou, who worked with organizations dedicated to the improvement of young women’s lives, was twice elected president of the National Council of Girl Scouts, once for 1922–25 and again for 1935–37. She is remembered as a cultured and brilliant first lady. (Photo: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum)

During the interwar period, Lou designed a family home on the Stanford campus that today is called the Lou Henry Hoover House and is the residence of the president of Stanford University. (Photo: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service)

In 1945, President Harry S. Truman asked Herbert Hoover to serve as the food supply coordinator for twenty-eight nations during the famine of 1946–47. Subsequently, Truman named Hoover chairman of the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of Government. (Photo: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum)

Hoover Institution director John Raisian and distinguished fellow George P. Shultz with Mikail Gorbachev and his wife, Raisa, during their 1992 tour of the exhibition of A Century of Revolutions: From Lenin to Gorbachev. (Photo: Doug Menuez/CMP)

Herbert Hoover felt that the carillon at the Belgian Pavilion of the 1939 New York World's Fair would appropriately crown the library he was planning at Stanford. In June 1941, the tower and the bells were in place to celebrate Stanford University's fiftieth anniversary. After being refurbished from 2000 to 2002, the carillon consists of forty-eight bells, tuned to play four chromatic octaves, a wooden bench and clavier (resembling a piano with handles instead of keys) for playing the carillon manually, and an automatic-play drum (resembling the player mechanism of a music box). (Photo: Craig Snarr)

On July 11, 2007, presidential scholar Michael Beschloss spoke to an audience of more than one thousand at the Hoover Institution's annual Dinner on the Quad. This event, which honors the Overseers, is held each July as part of the Board of Overseers' two-day meeting. (Photo: Craig Snarr)

The Hoover Institution, with its research on war, revolution, and peace, is a beacon of hope guiding the world. The more than five thousand separate collections in the Hoover Institution Archives include millions of individual documents concerning twentieth- and twenty-first-century history and politics around the world. (Photo: Craig Snarr)