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ROCK STARS
Lou Henry Hoover (1874–1944):

An Independent Woman of Action

Joanne Bourgeois, University of Washington; Michele Aldrich*; Léo F. Laporte, University of California Santa Cruz

GEOLOGY AT STANFORD
Lou was not sure what profession she could pursue, as possibili-
ties were limited for a woman at that time; her early experiences
with substitute teaching and bank clerking were not satisfying.
While holding temporary jobs, she attended public lectures by
John Casper Branner, the recently appointed chairman of the geol-
ogy department at the new Stanford University (opened 1891).
Branner’s lecture, “The Bones of the Earth,” inspired her, and
with his encouragement, she entered Stanford in 1894 as its first
woman undergraduate geology major. She was joined at Stanford
a year later by her sister Jean.
It was in Branner’s laboratory that Lou Henry met her future
husband (and later President of the United States), Herbert C.
(Bert) Hoover, who described himself as Branner’s “handy boy.”
Lou Henry on a family trip to camp. Acton, California, Bert recalled, “I felt it my duty to aid the young lady in her studies
USA, 22 Aug. 1891. Lou really walked all the way; she
sat on one of the park burros for fun and was photo- both in the laboratory and in the field. And this call to duty was
graphed. Courtesy Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, stimulated by her whimsical mind, her blue eyes, and a broad
photo 31-1891-05.
grinnish smile…” (H. Hoover, 1951). There is little detail about
When Lou Henry was born to Florence Ida Weed and Charles exactly what Lou studied in her geology major, but courses in the
Delano Henry in Waterloo, Iowa, USA, on 29 March 1874, her curriculum included dynamic and structural geology, economic
father named her “Lou” for the boy he was hoping she’d be. geology and assaying, topographic geology, mineralogy and petrol-
Another girl, Jean, was born in 1882. Their father worked at sev- ogy, historical geology, and paleontology.
eral positions before moving the family to southern California in Professor Branner and other faculty encouraged students to work
1885, partly for his wife’s health, and also where he finally suc- on summer geology field surveys throughout the west, and soon field
ceeded as a banker; they subsequently settled in Monterey, camp became a popular part of the curriculum, but for men only
Califorinia, USA, in 1892. Charles, an avid outdoorsman, took (until 1964). “So while the boys headed off [for the summer] with
Lou fishing and hunting, hiking and camping, ice skating and their maps and hammers, Lou Henry, ’98, the first Stanford woman to
horseback riding, rock collecting and mineral prospecting. She graduate in geology, had to stay behind on campus, cataloging rock
savored these times.
Lou was tall for her generation (5'8"), and her love of physical
activity and the outdoors was an enthusiasm she retained all her
life and went on to share with others, particularly via the Girl
Scouts and the National Amateur Athletic Federation (predecessor
to the NCAA). “The happiest part of my own very happy child-
hood and girlhood was without doubt the hours and days, some-
times entire months, which I spent pseudo-pioneering or scouting
in our wonderful western mountains with my father in our vaca-
tion times. So I cannot but want every girl to have the same wid-
ening, simplifying, joy-getting influences in her own life” (LHH
Speech, Hoover Library, quoted in NAblog).
Lou Henry’s postsecondary education began in 1890 at a “normal
school”—designed for training high-school graduates to become
teachers. She started at Los Angeles Normal (now UCLA) and com-
pleted her degree in 1893 at San Jose Normal (now San José State).
She originally chose the Los Angeles school, in part, for its empha-
sis on physical activity, even for women students, and because the
institution had what she said was the best gymnasium west of the
Mississippi. She also joined a school club where members gathered Lou Henry in a chemistry lab at Stanford University, 1895. Cour-
and displayed samples of the natural world. tesy Herbert Hoover Presidential Library, photo 31-1895-10.

*Michele Aldrich passed away in November 2016 after a brief illness. This article includes material from her unpublished studies of Lou Henry’s time at Stanford and her
work on De re Metallica, with access to Michele’s papers and permission to use those materials by Mark Aldrich.

48 GSA Today | October 2021