Herbert Hoover IQ

Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, in 1874 and orphaned at nine. He joined Stanford University's first class and graduated in geology in 1895. As a mining engineer in Australia and China he became wealthy, and with his wife Lou he translated a Latin mining classic. He led food relief for Belgium in the First World War, served as Commerce Secretary and became the 31st president in 1929, months before the Great Depression. He died in 1964.

He was never tested. Simonton's 2006 study gives him 142 in version II-C, averaging about 130 across the four versions. That is above the presidential middle, and his engineering record suggests strong technical reasoning.

He believed in voluntary cooperation and local relief over direct federal aid and held to balanced budgets and the gold standard. Many economists now think these policies deepened the crisis. He lost the 1932 election to Franklin Roosevelt in a landslide.

In 1914 he organised the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which fed about nine million people under German occupation. After the war he led the American Relief Administration, which fed millions in Europe and Soviet Russia.

Hoover approached every problem as an engineering task: gather data, organise, standardise. That served him brilliantly in relief work. Faced with a collapse that needed bold experiment, the same habits held him back.

What supports it

• Simonton (2006) gives Hoover 142 in version II-C.
• He graduated in geology from Stanford in 1895.
• His relief organisations are well documented.

What it cannot prove

• Simonton built most presidential figures statistically from expert ratings, so neighbouring presidents cannot really be told apart.
• Historians' views of his presidency may colour expert ratings.
• Achievement reflects education, opportunity, persistence and collaboration as well as raw reasoning ability.

Herbert Hoover's IQ is represented here by a retrospective estimate of 142, not a verified test result. Herbert Hoover is best known for exceptional technical expertise. The useful question is what the surviving evidence shows, not whether a precise modern score can be recovered.

Efficient, shy and stubborn. A problem-solver who could not make the Depression yield to engineering.

The dominant archetype here is The Engineer. This archetype shapes decision patterns: what feels natural, what creates friction, and what blind spots tend to emerge.

Estimated IQ is 142. This is a rough estimate based on documented accomplishments and contemporary accounts, not a literal measurement.

Hoover Dam was named after him, then renamed Boulder Dam, then given his name back in 1947.

Herbert Hoover's estimate of 142 falls in the genius level IQ range. Want your own number rather than Herbert's? Take the free IQ test or the quick IQ test.