The United States has been involved in humanitarian assistance missions since the late nineteenth century. However, Herbert Hoover’s American Relief Administration (ARA) was the first organization that combined the abilities of several smaller organizations to form a united front in saving the starving people of Europe after the First World War. While the ARA operated in dozens of countries, its mission in Ukraine provides an interesting case study. The First World War decimated most of Europe but Ukraine had also undergone major shifts in politics, as well as social changes that made the ARA’s mission there even more harrowing. This thesis traces the growth of American humanitarian assistance missions beginning in the 1860s with Clara Barton, until the conclusion of the ARA’s work in Ukraine. In order to do this effectively, the third chapter provides sufficient background on the situation in Ukraine leading up to the famine of 1921. Also included is a prospective interpretive plan for an exhibit about the ARA that could be located at the Hoover Institute at Stanford University.