Herbert Hoover’s Speech, Recollecting Life, Career, and Country, Signed 

Herbert Hoover was born on August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa. He was the first president born west of the Mississippi River and remains the only Iowan President. His father was a blacksmith in the town and a farm tool store owner.

In 1948, the town invited him back to give his “homecoming” speech on his 74th birthday.  The speech was filled with his recollections of his childhood in rural Iowa, and was also a retrospective on his life.  “Perhaps without immodesty I can claim to have had some experience in what American means. I have lived many kinds of American life,” he said.  “I have seen American in contrast with many nations and many races. My profession took me into many foreign lands under many kinds of government. I have worked with their great spiritual leaders and their great statesmen. I have worked in governments of free men, of tyrannies, of Socialists and of Communists. I have met with princes, kings, despots, and desperadoes.”

And it was a vision of how he saw the nation. “The meaning of our word ‘America’ flows from one pure source. Within the soul of America is freedom of mind and spirit in man. Here alone are the open windows through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit. Here alone is human dignity not a dream, but an accomplishment. Perhaps it is not perfect, but it is more full in realization here than any other place in the world.”

Booklet signed, 5.5×8, “The Meaning of America: Homecoming Address by Herbert Hoover at the reception tendered by West Branch, Iowa on his 74th Birthday, August 10, 1948”, 11-page pamphlet with the full text of this address.  Inscribed to Iowan “Gustav Venaas with the good wishes of Herbert Hoover” on front cover.