page_title: United States Department of Commerce
section_title: Other Hoover initiatives
hierarchical_section_title: United States Department of Commerce / History / Herbert Hoover as secretary of commerce / Other Hoover initiatives
caption_attribution_description: English: Left to right: Herbert Hoover, Mrs. Warren G. Harding, Warren G. Harding, all standing, in grandstand, at baseball game.
context_page_description: In the United States, the Department of Commerce is an executive department of the federal government concerned with promoting economic growth. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for business and government decision-making, and helping to set industrial standards. This organization's main purpose is to create jobs, promote economic growth, encourage sustainable development and block harmful trade practices of other nations. The Department of Commerce headquarters is the Herbert C. Hoover Building in Washington, DC.
  Wilbur Ross is the current Commerce secretary.
context_section_description: With the goal of encouraging wise business investments, Hoover made the Commerce Department a clearinghouse of information. He recruited numerous academics from various fields and tasked them with publishing reports on different aspects of the economy, including steel production and films. To eliminate waste, he encouraged standardization of products like automobile tires and baby bottle nipples. Other efforts at eliminating waste included reducing labor losses from trade disputes and seasonal fluctuations, reducing industrial losses from accident and injury, and reducing the amount of crude oil spilled during extraction and shipping. He promoted international trade by opening overseas offices to advise businessmen. Hoover was especially eager to promote Hollywood films overseas.
  His "Own Your Own Home" campaign was a collaboration to promote ownership of single-family dwellings, with groups such as the Better Houses in America movement, the Architects' Small House Service Bureau, and the Home Modernizing Bureau. He worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote the new long-term home mortgage, which dramatically stimulated home construction. Other accomplishments included winning the agreement of U.S. Steel to adopt an eight-hour workday, and the fostering of the Colorado River Compact, a water rights compact among Southwestern states.
caption: Hoover (left) with President Harding at a baseball game, 1921
exif: {}