American Relief Administration 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 United States Food Administration, also headed by Hoover. He and some of his collaborators had already gained useful experience by running the Committee for Relief in Belgium which fed seven million Belgians and two million northern French during World War I.
ARA was formed by US Congress on 24 February 1919 with the budget of 100 million dollars. 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. ARA ended its operations outside Russia in 1922; in Russia it operated till 1923.
Read more about American Relief Administration: ARA and Poland, ARA and Russian Famine of 1921
Famous quotes containing the words american and/or relief:
“It is not more people that are needed in the world but better people, physically, morally and mentally. This question of raising the quality of our American population must also be taken into account in the question of immigration.”
—Agnes E. Meyer (1887–1970)
“Hard times accounted in large part for the fact that the exposition was a financial disappointment in its first year, but Sally Rand and her fan dancers accomplished what applied science had failed to do, and the exposition closed in 1934 with a net profit, which was donated to participating cultural institutions, excluding Sally Rand.”
—For the State of Illinois, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)