President Hoover’s humanitarian work on display at Iowa State Fair

Before he became the only president from Iowa, Herbert Hoover was known as 'The Great Humanitarian.”

He left his career as a mining engineer to facilitate a massive food aid program for Europe during World War I. He is credited with saving 10 million people from starvation between 1914 and 1918, including 2.5 million children.

An exhibit honoring these efforts is on display through Sunday in Des Moines at the Iowa State Fair. It's a preview of a much larger, interactive exhibit coming next year to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

'It's exciting to be able to tell the story to Iowa, because Iowa is the breadbasket of the world, and Hoover put that into effect,” said Hoover's great-granddaughter Margaret Hoover.

She and other family members visited the exhibit Thursday.

'That really started his road to public service,” she said.

Belgium, a major priority of the relief efforts that also reached into France, imported about 80 percent of its food before the war. Once behind German lines, its people were cut off from their normal food supplies. America had not yet entered the war, so Hoover was able to negotiate access to the country.

Children can sample 'Hoover Cookies,” a tastier version of the Hoover Biscuit, a nutritional cake Hoover developed for Belgian children. If the biscuit was all people had to eat in a day, it was enough to keep them alive.

The exhibit also includes a 46-foot, 1/6 scale replica Belgian Relief Ship, which is touring the fairgrounds twice a day. It will be part of parades and festivals throughout the state in the next year, said Hoover Presidential Foundation executive director Jerry Fleagle.

'The ship is specially designed for parades,” exhibit builder Dan Yeager said. 'It can bend around corners, making it much easier to maneuver on city streets. We'll have a loud ship's horn and working smokestack, too.”

The exhibit is at the fair near the Grand Avenue gate. The full exhibit, set to open in West Branch next year, will feature additional elements, including:

'The Hoover 4-D experience: 3-D projection mapping tells young Hoover's story in a way similar to those used in the Ghost of Lincoln exhibit at the Lincoln Library.

'Savoy Hotel depiction: Hoover used London's Savoy Hotel as a base to rescue thousands of Americans stranded overseas when the war started.

'World War I trench: Visitors will get a sense of what war was like in the trenches with sensor-activated effects and immersion technologies that simulate battle conditions.

'Belgian Village: Exhibits will depict what life was like in war-era Belgium and the efforts Hoover made to save an estimated 10 million people from starvation.