Growing up in West Branch, Herbert Hoover saw his parents, family, and others in leadership roles, which instilled in him a drive to become a leader and a success.

Hoover’s childhood in a well-educated Quaker community, where members demonstrated leadership and a strong work ethic, coupled with a series of life experiences, developed a man of vision and ambition, capable of unprecedented achievement. Childhood and family influences, as demonstrated symbolically by cultural resources on site, affected Hoover’s character and public accomplishments. Hoover observed that every member of a community has the responsibility to give back to that community, be it a town, a nation, or the world.