America’s third Secretary Commerce, Herbert Hoover, is the most
distinguished by a longshot: Hoover was born in 1874 in Iowa and
oprhaned at age 9 after which time he lived with a grandfather
and two uncles before entering Stanford University in 1891 as
part of their first class. After graduation, Hoover worked in
the mining industry in Australia, then China (where he and his
wife are said to have learned Mandarin), then Australia again,
and then as a mining consultant on a global basis. When the
First World War broke out, he put his Quaker instincts for
humanitarianism to good use and helped organize the orderly
evacuation of American citizens from the war-affected countries.
Success in that role pushed him to the creation of the Committee
for Relief in Belgium which brought food and humanitarian aid to
that semi-occupied nation. When the United States entered the
war, Woodrow Wilson appointed him head of the American Food
Administration and after the war he continued doing humanitarian
work in Europe both t