Herbert Hoover

Hoover's presidency is remembered for the Depression, but as Commerce Secretary from 1921 to 1928 he was one of the most effective administrators in American government. He drove standardisation of everything from bricks and tyres to screw threads, cutting waste across industry, organised the allocation of radio frequencies that preceded the Radio Act of 1927, and ran the relief operation after the 1927 Mississippi flood. That flood relief also left Black refugees in camps under harsh conditions, a stain his agency never fully addressed.