National Archives and Records Administration

Intro Boyhood Lou Henry Hoover Belgian Relief Secretary of Commerce President After the White House

Elementary School Field Trips
to the
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library-Museum
  Pre & Post Visit Activities

Boyhood

Herbert Hoover was born on August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa. He had an older brother, Theodore (known as Tad) and a younger sister, Mary (known as May). Herbert’s nickname was Bert. His father, Jesse, was a blacksmith and his mother, Hulda, was very active in the town’s Quaker congregation. She taught her children to value education, hard work, plain living, and thrift. Herbert was six years old when his father died and by age ten he had lost both of his parents to illness. The three children were separated and sent to live with different relatives. Herbert lived on a farm near West Branch with his Uncle Allen Hoover, and then he moved to Oregon to live with another uncle, Dr. Henry John Minthorn. Herbert was eleven years old when he traveled to Oregon by train with two dimes sewn into the lining of his coat.

To learn more about Herbert’s boyhood go to:
http://www.ecommcode.com/hoover/hooveronline/hoover_bio/boy.htm

Pre-visit activities:

• Ask your students to decide what they would take in a duffel bag if they were moving to another state without anyone else from their family going with them. They may only take what they think will fit into the duffel bag.
  Click here for a printable version of the duffel bag worksheet.
  

  Adobe Reader is required to print the PDF worksheets.
  ;

• In speeches later in his life, Herbert Hoover describes the hill he slid down as a young child in West Branch. Draw a picture of what the hill might look like in the winter after a snowstorm.
   
• Living in West Branch Herbert Hoover developed a lifelong love of fishing. Imagine and draw Herbert Hoover fishing in the Wapsinonoc Creek.
   

Post-visit activities:

• After visiting the museum ask your students to pack a satchel for Herbert’s journey to Oregon remembering what the Hoover home and Herbert’s interests were when they visited the museum.
  Click here for a printable version of the satchel worksheet PDF.
   
• Write a letter of advice you would have sent with Herbert if you had been a friend of his at the time he was sent to live with his uncle in Oregon. Remember to be positive but help him accept his new life in Oregon.
   
• What fears do you think Herbert might have had when facing the trip to Oregon? Write a diary entry recording his possible feelings.
  Click here for a printable version of the diary page.