Background
Herbert William Hoover was born on October 30, 1877 in North Canton, Ohio, United States. He was the son of William Henry Hoover, a saddle and harness manufacturer, and Susan Troxel Hoover.
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Herbert William Hoover was born on October 30, 1877 in North Canton, Ohio, United States. He was the son of William Henry Hoover, a saddle and harness manufacturer, and Susan Troxel Hoover.
Hoover attended the local high school before entering Hiram College in Ohio, where he remained during 1896-1897.
Hoover began working in his father's business, which also employed his two younger brothers. This job established a lifelong family partnership. By 1903 the W. H. Hoover Company was incorporated, with Herbert William Hoover as vice-president. The saddlery business prospered, employing 200 workers by 1908. Even the challenge of the horseless carriage was met with flexibility and initiative. The Hoovers transformed their production line from horse collars and harnesses to leather fan belts, auto straps, and gear covers. By 1908 their shipments for Willys-Overland alone amounted to $60, 000 annually. Herbert Hoover concentrated on developing new products to sell to the automobile manufacturers. When technological improvements in car production (for example, hardtop models, allsteel parts, and self-starters) decreased the market for leather straps and crank boots, the Hoovers again switched to new products, including gun cases, hunting coats, and other outdoor sporting equipment.
With the outbreak of World War I their energetic salesmanship brought multimillion-dollar orders for varied supplies: from leather straps for the French artillery (under contract with Bethlehem Steel) to tarpaulins and water buckets for the United States army. Earlier, however, a combination of foresight, the desire to diversify, and fortuitous circumstance led the Hoovers into production of a new product. An inventive janitor named James Murray Spangler, weary of pushing a huge Bissell carpet sweeper in a dry-goods store and thus aggravating his asthmatic cough, mounted an electric-fan motor onto the sweeper brush and attached an old pillowcase to catch the dust.
After conducting tedious experiments, Spangler patented an electric-suction sweeper on July 2, 1908. He then established a company to market his product but lacked adequate financial and managerial resources to continue the business. Spangler, however, demonstrated the machine to his cousin Susan Troxel Hoover. Subsequent negotiations with the Hoovers led on August 8, 1908, to the establishment of the Electric Suction Sweeper Company, with William Henry Hoover as president-treasurer; Herbert William as secretary-general manager; and Spangler as production supervisor on a salary-royalty basis only, with all his debts assumed by the company. Capitalization was at 360 shares of $100 par value. Within three months the first sweepers were on the market--small, hand-operated machines selling at the relatively high price of $125. Yet they cost far less than the electric suction systems requiring basement pumps and metal ducts attached to wall fixtures that only the very rich could afford. Herbert William Hoover provided the necessary leadership for the new enterprise; the other family members were still preoccupied with leather-goods production.
After Spangler died, the newly formed (January 3, 1910) Hoover Suction Sweeper Company successfully defended itself against the exclusive sales rights claimed by Spangler's former backers. To persuade the American housewife to buy the vacuum sweeper, Hoover placed a two-column advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post in December 1908. "This little machine will take up all the dust and dirt" at a cost of "less than a penny per room, " it promised, even offering ten days' free trial. A flood of mail inquiries and orders soon arrived at the firm's office. Hoover chose to establish a dealer organization rather than sell cleaners directly. He transferred customer inquiries, along with prepaid machines, to local merchants, with instructions to collect forthcoming payment and to keep the commission; unsold items could be retained for demonstration purposes. Thus, by working with independent dealers throughout the country, the foundation was laid for future expansion. Eventually the nation was divided into divisions and districts, with each manager also offered the incentive of sales commissions. Production efforts were stepped up to meet the rising demand created by effective selling techniques. What was at first "a little side issue" for the W. H. Hoover Company grew from a production line of 372 in 1908 to 3, 926 by 1912.
By the early 1920s the sales office clamored for as many as 60, 000 cleaners within a few months. In the wake of World War I the family's leather business was phased out to concentrate on vacuum cleaners. Herbert Hoover became president (1922-1948) and later chairman of the board (1948-1954). Pressures for new technological and sales improvements continued. The engineering department (headed by Herbert's cousin Earl Hoover) developed lighter, cleaner, and less expensive models that included modifications in the beating-sweeping brush roll to reduce carpet damage. Offers to train full-time clerks and even to rebate their salaries attracted new dealers.
By cultivating charge-account customers the company was able to expand department store volume. The innovative policy of giving home demonstrations further expanded sales. Moreover, Hoover's early decision to plow back profits diminished the firm's dependence on banks. In the 1920s the company expanded its operations into the United Kingdom, establishing plants in South Wales and Scotland that produced washing machines as well as cleaners. This expansion involved multimillion-dollar investments and created thousands of jobs.
By the mid-twentieth century Hoover International Corporation, operating in sixty-seven nations, employed 15, 000 people; its thirteen modern plants supplied key markets directly, whether in France or throughout the Americas. The firm's annual business totaled over $51 million by the time Hoover died, in Canton, Ohio.
Hoover's name was synonymous with the vacuum cleaning process--in Great Britain "to Hoover" became the popular term for vacuum sweeping. He was a co-founder, with his father, of W. H. Hoover Company, later Electric Suction Sweeper Company, leaving a legacy of successful company leadership that transformed a leather goods business into the world's largest manufacturer of vacuum cleaners. By introducing and successfully marketing the vacuum cleaner, Hoover helped to bring fundamental changes to the American home.
On December 15, 1905, Hoover married Grace Louise Steele; they had four children.
