Herbert Clark Hoover

Birth-Death: (1874 - 1964 ) Term: (1929-1933 )

President Hoover's administration was dominated by the Great Depression. It was similar in many ways to depressions before, but was more involved with foreign economics than those before. U.S. investment both during and after World War I put the economies of Europe and the United States together. The depression of all nations fed upon each other.

Foreign Events of Herbert Hoover

    The Great Depression that occurred throughout the world in the 1930s decreased the amount of international political activity. There was one major piece of legislation passed before the Depression and that was the National Origins Immigration Act. This act was designed to control immigration from southern and eastern Europe. This section of Europe had become the new hot spot for immigrants, as shown by a 1914 survey which found that almost 75 percent of all immigrants that year came from eastern and southern parts of Europe.

    The first quota laws passed during the 1920s allowed a number of immigrants in the range of one to three percent of people who traced their origins to that country. The populations used came from the census of 1920 or 1910. The 1924 law went as far as to allow only one percent of the 1890 population to immigrate to the Americas each year.

    The National Origins Act passed by Hoover replaced that formula with an even harsher one. It set the upper limit of all immigrants to the country at 150,000 people a year. It divided the immigrants proportionally according to the fraction of all people who had traced their roots to the same country in 1920.