Get Behind our Soldiers

WWI poster
food conservation
World War I

Before becoming the 31st President of the United States, Herbert Hoover coordinated a massive effort to help feed starving citizens of France and Belgium in the early years of WWI. From London Hoover negotiated over $100 million in loans from belligerent nations to feed starving Europeans. In addition to the worldwide fund-raising network, Hoover secured food from producers around the globe including the United States, Burma, Manchuria, and Argentina. In May 1917 Hoover was appointed to head the U.S. Food Administration and in that role he directed food conservation efforts at home, known popularly as “Hooverizing.”

Beckman, Rienecke

Small Special Collections Library, Bruccoli Great War Collection. Gift of Matthew J. Bruccoli.

1917

1917