Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933. A member of the Republican Party, he held office during the onset of the Great Depression. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium, served as the director of the U.S. Food Administration, and served as the U.S. secretary of commerce.
This article is about the president of the United States. For other uses, see Herbert Hoover (disambiguation).
Herbert Hoover
- Warren G. Harding
- Calvin Coolidge
Position established
Position abolished
Position established
Position abolished
October 20, 1964 (aged 90)
New York City, U.S.
Independent (before 1920)
Republican (1920–1964)
Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895. He took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China. He rapidly became a wealthy mining engineer. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I, he organized and headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, president Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration. He became famous as his country's "food czar". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the starving millions in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Hoover's wartime service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 U.S. presidential election.
Hoover served as the secretary of commerce under presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Hoover was an unusually active and visible Cabinet member, becoming known as "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments." He was influential in the development of air travel and radio. He led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. Hoover won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election and defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith in a landslide. In 1929, Hoover assumed the presidency during a period of widespread economic stability. However, during his first year in office, the stock market crashed, signaling the onset of the Great Depression, which dominated Hoover's presidency. Hoover's response to the depression was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis. Approximately 1.5-2 million Mexican Americans were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation — a majority of them were born in the United States.
In the midst of the Great Depression, Hoover was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. Hoover's retirement was over 31 years long, one of the longest presidential retirements. He authored numerous works and became increasingly conservative in retirement. He strongly criticized Roosevelt's foreign policy and the New Deal. In the 1940s and 1950s, public opinion of Hoover improved largely due to his service in various assignments for presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, including chairing the influential Hoover Commission. Critical assessments of his presidency by historians and political scientists generally rank him as a significantly below-average president, although Hoover has received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official.[1][2][3]
Legacy
Historical reputation
Hoover was extremely unpopular when he left office after the 1932 election, and his historical reputation would not begin to recover until the 1970s. According to Professor David E. Hamilton, historians have credited Hoover for his genuine belief in voluntarism and cooperation, as well as the innovation of some of his programs. However, Hamilton also notes that Hoover was politically inept and failed to recognize the severity of the Great Depression.[281] Nicholas Lemann writes that Hoover has been remembered "as the man who was too rigidly conservative to react adeptly to the Depression, as the hapless foil to the great Franklin Roosevelt, and as the politician who managed to turn a Republican country into a Democratic one".[3] Polls of historians and political scientists have generally ranked Hoover in the bottom third of presidents. A 2018 poll of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Hoover as the 36th best president.[282] A 2017 C-SPAN poll of historians also ranked Hoover as the 36th best president.[283]
Although Hoover is generally regarded as having had a failed presidency, he has also received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official.[3] Biographer Glen Jeansonne writes that Hoover was "one of the most extraordinary Americans of modern times," adding that Hoover "led a life that was a prototypical Horatio Alger story, except that Horatio Alger stories stop at the pinnacle of success".[284] Biographer Kenneth Whyte writes that, "the question of where Hoover belongs in the American political tradition remains a loaded one to this day. While he clearly played important roles in the development of both the progressive and conservative traditions, neither side will embrace him for fear of contamination with the other."[285]
Historian Richard Pipes, on his actions leading the American Relief Administration, said of him: "Many statesmen occupy a prominent place in history for having sent millions to their death; Herbert Hoover, maligned for his performance as President, and soon forgotten in Russia, has the rare distinction of having saved millions."[286]
Views of race
Although racist remarks and humor were common at the time, Hoover never indulged in them while president, and deliberate discrimination was anathema to him. Like many of his peers Hoover considered white people to be inherently superior to Black people in most spheres and that interracial marriages were bad. He did think education and work would improve Black people's standing, hence his support for the Tuskegee Institute.[287] His wife Lou Henry Hoover broke the colour bar as first lady by inviting Jessie De Priest, wife of the first Black congressman elected in several decades, to a traditional tea for the wives of congressmen, as well as later inviting the Tuskegee Institute choir (then under the direction of William Dawson).[288]
Although he thought of himself as a friend to Black people and an advocate for their progress,[289] many of his Black contemporaries had a different view. W. E. B. Du Bois described him as an "undemocratic racist who saw blacks as a species of 'sub-men'".[287] Some historians trace the disaffection of African Americans with the Republican party to his time in office especially due to his attempt to remove African Americans from leadership in the Republican party in the South.[287]
Memorials
The Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum is located in West Branch, Iowa next to the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site. The library is one of thirteen presidential libraries run by the National Archives and Records Administration. The Hoover–Minthorn House, where Hoover lived from 1885 to 1891, is located in Newberg, Oregon. His Rapidan fishing camp in Virginia, which he donated to the government in 1933, is now a National Historic Landmark within the Shenandoah National Park. The Lou Henry and Herbert Hoover House, built in 1919 in Stanford, California, is now the official residence of the president of Stanford University, and a National Historic Landmark. Also located at Stanford is the Hoover Institution, a think tank and research institution started by Hoover.
Hoover has been memorialized in the names of several things, including the Hoover Dam on the Colorado River and numerous elementary, middle, and high schools across the United States. Two minor planets, 932 Hooveria[290] and 1363 Herberta, are named in his honor.[291] The Polish capital of Warsaw has a square named after Hoover,[292] and the historic townsite of Gwalia, Western Australia contains the Hoover House Bed and Breakfast, where Hoover resided while managing and visiting the mine during the first decade of the twentieth century.[293] A medicine ball game known as Hooverball is named for Hoover; it was invented by White House physician Admiral Joel T. Boone to help Hoover keep fit while serving as president.[294]
