American Relief Administration

American Relief Administration
Founded
  • 1919; 105 years ago (1919)
FoundersUnited States Congress
TypeNon-governmental organization, Non-profit organization
FocusHumanitarianism
Area served
Europe, Russia
MethodAid
Key people
Herbert Hoover, future president
American Relief for Central Europe Dress Pin, circa 1919.

American Relief Administration (ARA) was an American relief mission to Europe and later post-revolutionary Russia after World War I. Herbert Hoover, future president of the United States, was the program director.

The ARA's immediate predecessor was the important United States Food Administration, also headed by Hoover. He and some of his collaborators had already gained useful experience by running the Commission for Relief in Belgium which fed seven million Belgians and two million northern French during World War I.

ARA was formed by United States Congress on February 24, 1919, with a budget of 100 million dollars ($1,757,000,000 in 2024). Its budget was boosted by private donations, which resulted in another 100 million dollars. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the ARA delivered more than four million tons of relief supplies to 23 war-torn European countries. Between 1919 and 1921, Arthur Cuming Ringland was chief of mission in Europe.[1] ARA ended its operations outside Russia in 1922; it operated in Russia until 1923.

  1. ^ "Oral History Interview with Arthur Ringland by Richard D. McKinzie". Truman Library. Retrieved July 4, 2018.