Herbert Hoover, the thirty-first U.S. president, was born in the village of West Branch, Iowa, to a family of modest means, and he believed in the unbounded opportunity of American life. He said his country gave him, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance, and that in no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. His life and accomplishments reflected how family, faith, education, and hard work opened a world of opportunity, even the presidency, to a man of simple beginnings.