Photo of Lou Hoover inspecting one of the "big guns" at a Chinese fort that shelled the community of Tientsin during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900, via The Omaha Project.

"The independent girl is truly of quite modern origin, and usually is a most bewitching little piece of humanity." —Lou Henry Hoover

"Lou grew up something of a tomboy in Waterloo. Her father, Charles Henry, took his daughter on camping trips in the hills—her greatest pleasures in her early teens. Lou became a fine horsewoman; she hunted, and preserved specimens with the skill of a taxidermist; she developed an enthusiasm for rocks, minerals, and mining. She enrolled at Stanford University as the school's only female geology major." —Anne Beiser Allen in an excerpt from An Independent Woman: The Life of Lou Henry Hoover