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Q. In your June column about the real size of 2 by 4 boards, I think you left something out. When I visited the Hoover presidential library in Iowa, there was a display about Hoover’s role in standardization. Did you find any record of that?
A. I will get to this .question, but first I want to share the high points of Hoover’s career. He was a one-term president during the 1929 stock market crash and is usually remembered for an inadequate response at the onset of the Great Depression.
It may be surprising, but Hoover was lauded for his crisis management skills during World War I and the 1920s. In 1914, he was the leader of the Commission for Relief in Belgium (a non-governmental organization) which supplied food to the population of northern France and Belgium during the German occupation. He displayed extraordinary diplomatic skill, perseverance and courage as he traveled in war zones.
When American soldiers joined the fight, President Wilson asked Hoover to lead the effort to ramp up agricultural production and control surging farm prices in order to feed war-torn Europe. In 1921, he directed famine relief in the Soviet Union.
This year, those who live in the Mississippi watershed are facing disastrous flooding. Due to population growth, there is a good chance more people will be affected, but until now The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 was the flood of record. The homeless count rose to 650,000 and 500 people died. Hoover directed the feeding, clothing and housing of stricken families. This effort made him the most famous Secretary of Commerce in U.S. history.
It also contributed to his overwhelming success in the presidential campaign of 1928. He took office in March 1929. That fall, the stock market crashed. As the 1932 presidential election approached, Americans increasingly blamed him for widespread poverty. In the summer of 1932, federal troops rousted unemployed, protesting veterans from shacks outside Washington, D.C.
That fall, Franklin Delano Roosevelt swept the country to begin the first of his four terms in office.
Hoover remained a public figure. After World War II, he directed food aid to the starving people of Germany and Austria.
Well, that was a quite a detour. Let’s return to Hoover and lumber sizes. My main source for the first article on this subject was the lengthy “History of Yard Lumber Size Standards,” published by the U.S. Forest Service in 1964.
When I opened the PDF version of that online document, I used the find command to find every place that Hoover’s name appeared. While Hoover’s name appears 17 times, I think the excerpts below make his contribution clear.
“The beginning of national standardization of lumber size and grading started in 1921. A group of leading lumber manufacturers paid a visit to the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, a noted engineer. Mr. Hoover was actively interested in product standardization and the simplification of standards in many fields through the work of the Bureau of Standards.
“This group of lumbermen proposed a simplification of both lumber size and grading standards and publication by the Bureau of Standards. The initial approach to Mr. Hoover had an interested and enthusiastic response…
“The standards, Simplified Practice Recommendation No. 16, became effective July 1, 1924. In announcing the effective standard, Secretary Hoover said in part, ‘...it is proof of industrial conscience and service;’ and ‘If this effort succeeds, no legislation will be necessary. This is keeping the Government out of business through the remedying of abuses by business itself.’”
As Secretary of Commerce, Hoover was clearly in a position to move standardization forward.
Additional reference sources: “Complete American Presidents Sourcebook;” “Presidential Administration Profiles for Students;” and “Associated Press Library of Disasters.”
