History UsefulNotes / HerbertHoover

During the Depression, his public image went very far south, very quickly. Starting with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the American economy chaotically saw the prosperity of the 1920s turn into the worst economic crisis in world history. From beginning to end, Hoover's presidency saw unemployment rise to an astounding 25% of the workforce, over 60% of the population falling into poverty, the once-prosperous farms of the Great Plains becoming the desert of the Dust Bowl, and the Dow Jones losing over 88% of its value in four years.[[note]]This crash was so bad that it wasn't until 1955 that the stock market fully recovered -- over twenty-five years later![[/note]] America needed to blame somebody, and he was the most prominent and easiest target available. The actions pursued by the administration usually made it ''even worse'': for example, his staff felt that a program of bullying Mexicans to emigrate ''en masse'' (an idea which may not have originated with Hoover but that he didn’t stop) would free up more jobs but did little but further drain the treasury coffers for a racially-charged agenda, while the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, a 60% tariff that was meant to protect American businesses from foreign competition, only caused a trade war as other countries raised their tariffs in response, crippling international trade and deepening the economic crisis. In fact, ''over 1,000'' economists signed a petition begging Hoover not to sign the tariff bill. There was also some spectacular mishandling of the Federal Reserve, which prevented it from doing pretty much anything it could have done to help the economy while inadvertently leading it to do everything it could to worsen it. Damn near every major sign of poverty a person could have around them was branded irrevocably with Hoover's name -- empty turned-out pockets were "Hoover flags", rabbit or squirrel meat was "Hoover steak", newspapers used by the homeless to keep warm were "Hoover blankets", cardboard inserts to replace worn-out shoe soles were "Hoover leather", and shanty towns set up for the influx of homeless (like a well-known example in Central Park in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) were called "Hoovervilles." Most infamously, when a "Bonus Army" of 20,000 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veterans marched on Washington demanding that their military bonus certificates be paid out early, since they couldn't get work, Hoover sent General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur and the regular Army to clear them out forcefully. [=MacArthur=] went further than planned and used tanks, bayonets, and tear gas to expel the marchers, outraging the public.[[note]]Famously, his challenger UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt sent his wife, UsefulNotes/{{Eleanor|Roosevelt}}, with food and charitable goods, drawing a very clear line between the two men in the public's mind.[[/note]] Hoover had been a humanitarian, sure, but he was also a SelfMadeMan who was less than thrilled about giving public handouts.

During the Depression, his public image went very far south, very quickly. Starting with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the American economy chaotically saw the prosperity of the 1920s turn into the worst economic crisis in world history. From beginning to end, Hoover's presidency saw unemployment rise to an astounding 25% of the workforce, over 60% of the population falling into poverty, the once-prosperous farms of the Great Plains becoming the desert of the Dust Bowl, and the Dow Jones losing over 88% of its value in four years.[[note]]This crash was so bad that it wasn't until 1955 that the stock market fully recovered -- over twenty-five years later![[/note]] America needed to blame somebody, and he was the most prominent and easiest target available. The actions pursued by the administration usually made it ''even worse'': for example, his staff felt that a program of bullying Mexicans to emigrate ''en masse'' (an idea which may not have originated with Hoover but that he didn’t stop) would free up more jobs but was both disturbingly racist and expensive to implement, while the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, a 60% tariff that was meant to protect American businesses from foreign competition, only caused a trade war as other countries raised their tariffs in response, crippling international trade and deepening the economic crisis. In fact, ''over 1,000'' economists signed a petition begging Hoover not to sign the tariff bill. There was also some spectacular mishandling of the Federal Reserve, which prevented it from doing pretty much anything it could have done to help the economy while inadvertently leading it to do everything it could to worsen it. Damn near every major sign of poverty a person could have around them was branded irrevocably with Hoover's name -- empty turned-out pockets were "Hoover flags", rabbit or squirrel meat was "Hoover steak", newspapers used by the homeless to keep warm were "Hoover blankets", cardboard inserts to replace worn-out shoe soles were "Hoover leather", and shanty towns set up for the influx of homeless (like a well-known example in Central Park in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) were called "Hoovervilles." Most infamously, when a "Bonus Army" of 20,000 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veterans marched on Washington demanding that their military bonus certificates be paid out early, since they couldn't get work, Hoover sent General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur and the regular Army to clear them out forcefully. [=MacArthur=] went further than planned and used tanks, bayonets, and tear gas to expel the marchers, outraging the public.[[note]]Famously, his challenger UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt sent his wife, UsefulNotes/{{Eleanor|Roosevelt}}, with food and charitable goods, drawing a very clear line between the two men in the public's mind.[[/note]] Hoover had been a humanitarian, sure, but he was also a SelfMadeMan who was less than thrilled about giving public handouts.

During the Depression, his public image went very far south, very quickly. Starting with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the American economy chaotically saw the prosperity of the 1920s turn into the worst economic crisis in world history. From beginning to end, Hoover's presidency saw unemployment rise to an astounding 25% of the workforce, over 60% of the population falling into poverty, the once-prosperous farms of the Great Plains becoming the desert of the Dust Bowl, and the Dow Jones losing over 88% of its value in four years.[[note]]This crash was so bad that it wasn't until 1955 that the stock market fully recovered -- over twenty-five years later![[/note]] America needed to blame somebody, and he was the most prominent and easiest target available. The actions pursued by the administration usually made it ''even worse'': for example, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, a 60% tariff that was meant to protect American businesses from foreign competition, only caused a trade war as other countries raised their tariffs in response, crippling international trade and deepening the economic crisis. In fact, ''over 1,000'' economists signed a petition begging Hoover not to sign the tariff bill. There was also some spectacular mishandling of the Federal Reserve, which prevented it from doing pretty much anything it could have done to help the economy while inadvertently leading it to do everything it could to worsen it. Damn near every major sign of poverty a person could have around them was branded irrevocably with Hoover's name -- empty turned-out pockets were "Hoover flags", rabbit or squirrel meat was "Hoover steak", newspapers used by the homeless to keep warm were "Hoover blankets", cardboard inserts to replace worn-out shoe soles were "Hoover leather", and shanty towns set up for the influx of homeless (like a well-known example in Central Park in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) were called "Hoovervilles." Most infamously, when a "Bonus Army" of 20,000 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veterans marched on Washington demanding that their military bonus certificates be paid out early, since they couldn't get work, Hoover sent General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur and the regular Army to clear them out forcefully. [=MacArthur=] went further than planned and used tanks, bayonets, and tear gas to expel the marchers, outraging the public.[[note]]Famously, his challenger UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt sent his wife, UsefulNotes/{{Eleanor|Roosevelt}}, with food and charitable goods, drawing a very clear line between the two men in the public's mind.[[/note]] Hoover had been a humanitarian, sure, but he was also a SelfMadeMan who was less than thrilled about giving public handouts.

* In ''Film/HomeAlone2'', the bellhop at the Plaza Hotel namedrops Hoover in what is obviously a standard line for the staff.

Hoover tried to meet with Roosevelt following the latter's election to work together on programs to help the country (Hoover didn't want to start a program that FDR would have to carry out without getting Roosevelt's buy-in on it), but Roosevelt rebuffed all such attempts. It has been suggested that he didn't want to be forced to share credit with Hoover. Despite the ignominious nature of his departure from office, Hoover was still considered to have a good chance of making an immediate comeback in 1936, as it was thought that the Democratic vote would be split by Senator Huey Long pulling a StartMyOwn and running as a third-party candidate... until Long was assassinated in late 1935, after which Hoover threw in the towel and supported the candidacy of Alf Landon.

During UsefulNotes/WorldWarI, he led an American program to distribute food to needy people, first and foremost those living in those allied to America. And his humanitarianism was such that it was reported a letter addressed to "Miracle Man, Washington DC" was delivered straight to him. He served as Secretary of Commerce under UsefulNotes/WarrenGHarding and UsefulNotes/CalvinCoolidge, further increasing his popularity with the public. Due to the economic prosperity of the time, he won the election of 1928 rather easily. He's the last person to be elected President after having been a Cabinet member, and one of only three men to ascend to the White House without having either been a general or ever gotten elected to public office before, the other two being UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft and UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump.[[note]]UsefulNotes/ZacharyTaylor, UsefulNotes/UlyssesSGrant, and UsefulNotes/DwightDEisenhower hadn't been elected to anything before, either, but they were famous generals, rather than civil servants like Taft or Hoover.[[/note]] (By the way, Hoover's equivalent [[UsefulNotes/{{Canada}} up north]] was Richard B. Bennett, another one-term head of government who also has the misfortune of being known mainly for his lack of success in fighting the Great Depression.)

* In the live-action ''Film/{{Transformers}}'' film, Hoover is established as having founded Sector Seven, and arranging for Hoover Dam to be built to house the [[MacGuffin AllSpark]] (as well as the frozen form of Megatron). In the ExpandedUniverse media of the film franchise, his involvement with the discovery of Cybertronian tech on Earth dates back to his time in China.

His Vice President, Charles Curtis, was close to half Native American, specifically having three of his eight great-grandparents coming from the Kaw Nation, and was the first non-White person to hold the position, a distinction he held alone for nearly a century until UsefulNotes/JoeBiden's VP, the half-Black, half-South Asian UsefulNotes/KamalaHarris, took it in 2021.

Ironically enough, prior to his presidency Hoover was known as something of a [[RenaissanceMan miracle man]], especially with his humanitarian aid. Originally a mining engineer, he rose up the corporate ranks at a British mining firm in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, UsefulNotes/{{Russia}},[[note]]Decades after his work there, [[https://books.google.com/books?id=hAwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false the CIA used his personal maps and records of the Kyshtym area to pinpoint a major Soviet plutonium plant.]][[/note]] and UsefulNotes/{{China}}. While in the latter country--inspired in part by his Quaker faith--he began to take up humanitarian causes, striving to improve the lot of his workers and the Chinese in general. (He and his wife Lou Henry also learned some Mandarin; they would later [[HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier use it to keep from being spied on in]] TheWhiteHouse.) He eventually started his own mining consulting firm; by his 40th birthday in 1914, Hoover had investments in every continent but Antarctica, offices in six cities around the world, and a personal fortune of $4 million (that's about $97 million in 2016 dollars). At the same time, he lectured and wrote about mining and--with Lou Henry (a noted Latinist and geologist in her own right)--translated and annotated the [[{{Doorstopper}} massive]] 16th-century mining guide ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_metallica De re metallica]]'' from Latin (the first time ever into English and still highly regarded; it remains in print as the authoritative English translation, and influenced translations into other languages).

Ironically enough, prior to his presidency Hoover was known as something of a miracle man, especially with his humanitarian aid. Originally a mining engineer, he rose up the corporate ranks at a British mining firm in UsefulNotes/{{Australia}}, UsefulNotes/{{Russia}},[[note]]Decades after his work there, [[https://books.google.com/books?id=hAwAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA12&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false the CIA used his personal maps and records of the Kyshtym area to pinpoint a major Soviet plutonium plant.]][[/note]] and UsefulNotes/{{China}}. While in the latter country--inspired in part by his Quaker faith--he began to take up humanitarian causes, striving to improve the lot of his workers and the Chinese in general. (He and his wife Lou Henry also learned some Mandarin; they would later [[HidingBehindTheLanguageBarrier use it to keep from being spied on in]] TheWhiteHouse.) He eventually started his own mining consulting firm; by his 40th birthday in 1914, Hoover had investments in every continent but Antarctica, offices in six cities around the world, and a personal fortune of $4 million (that's about $97 million in 2016 dollars). At the same time, he lectured and wrote about mining and--with Lou Henry (a noted Latinist and geologist in her own right)--translated and annotated the [[{{Doorstopper}} massive]] 16th-century mining guide ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_metallica De re metallica]]'' from Latin (the first time ever into English and still highly regarded; it remains in print as the authoritative English translation, and influenced translations into other languages).

-->-- '''Herbert Hoover''' in 1928, [[FunnyAneurysmMoment one year before]] TheGreatDepression began.

He lived a very long time; Hoover was the first former president since UsefulNotes/JohnAdams to live to 90 years and had the longest retirement of any former president until he was surpassed in 2012 by UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter (who, coincidentally, is also far more acclaimed for what he did outside the Oval Office rather than in it). Additionally, he didn't just outlive [[UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft his two]] [[UsefulNotes/CalvinCoolidge predecessors]] alive at the time of his inauguration; he also outlived [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt two of]] [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy his successors]], dying nearly 32 years after his term was over in late 1964.[[note]]Conspiracy theorists who whisper about the Presidential Guard rehearsing a funeral shortly before Kennedy's assassination forget or omit that the Guard was actually rehearsing for Hoover, whose death had been expected. As it turned out, he held on for a year.[[/note]] With Roosevelt and Kennedy having died in office, Hoover’s death was also the first death of a former president since Coolidge’s all the way back in 1933.[[note]]He's also the most recent ex-president who died during a campaign period. Out of respect, then-President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson and his challenger UsefulNotes/BarryGoldwater suspended their campaigns for a week.[[/note]] And he lived through three of the four presidential assassinations (in addition to Kennedy, he was also alive when UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield and UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley met their respective ends, and indeed was born only nine years after UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln was assassinated). He is also the only President to outlive every member of his Cabinet.

During the Depression, his public image went very far south, very quickly. Starting with the Stock Market Crash of 1929, the American economy chaotically saw the prosperity of the 1920s turn into the worst economic crisis in world history. From beginning to end, Hoover's presidency saw unemployment rise to an astounding 25% of the workforce, over 60% of the population falling into poverty, the once-prosperous farms of the Great Plains becoming the desert of the Dust Bowl, and the Dow Jones losing over 88% of its value in four years.[[note]]This crash was so bad that it wasn't until 1955 that the stock market fully recovered -- over twenty-five years later![[/note]] America needed to blame somebody, and he was the most prominent and easiest target available. The actions pursued by the administration usually made it ''even worse'': for example, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, a 60% tariff that was meant to protect American businesses from foreign competition, only caused a trade war as other countries raised their tariffs in response, crippling international trade and deepening the economic crisis. In fact, ''over 1,000'' economists signed a petition begging Hoover not to sign the tariff bill. There was also some spectacular mishandling of the Federal Reserve, which prevented it from doing pretty much anything it could have done to help the economy while inadvertently leading it to do everything it could to worsen it. Damn near every major sign of poverty a person could have around them was branded [[NeverLiveItDown irrevocably]] with Hoover's name -- empty turned-out pockets were "Hoover flags", rabbit or squirrel meat was "Hoover steak", newspapers used by the homeless to keep warm were "Hoover blankets", cardboard inserts to replace worn-out shoe soles were "Hoover leather", and shanty towns set up for the influx of homeless (like a well-known example in Central Park in UsefulNotes/NewYorkCity) were called "Hoovervilles." Most infamously, when a "Bonus Army" of 20,000 UsefulNotes/WorldWarI veterans marched on Washington demanding that their military bonus certificates be paid out early, since they couldn't get work, Hoover sent General UsefulNotes/DouglasMacArthur and the regular Army to clear them out forcefully. [=MacArthur=] went further than planned and used tanks, bayonets, and tear gas to expel the marchers, outraging the public.[[note]]Famously, his challenger UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt sent his wife, UsefulNotes/{{Eleanor|Roosevelt}}, with food and charitable goods, drawing a very clear line between the two men in the public's mind.[[/note]] Hoover had been a humanitarian, sure, but he was also a SelfMadeMan who was less than thrilled about giving public handouts.

Hoover tried to meet with Roosevelt following the latter's election to work together on programs to help the country (Hoover didn't want to start a program that FDR would have to carry out without getting Roosevelt's buy-in on it), but Roosevelt rebuffed all such attempts. It has been suggested that he didn't want to be forced to share credit with Hoover.

He lived a very long time; Hoover was the first former president since UsefulNotes/JohnAdams to live to 90 years and had the longest retirement of any former president until he was surpassed in 2012 by UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter (who, coincidentally, is also far more acclaimed for what he did outside the Oval Office rather than in it). Additionally, he didn't just outlive [[UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft his two]] [[UsefulNotes/CalvinCoolidge predecessors]] alive at the time of his inauguration; he also outlived [[UsefulNotes/FranklinDRoosevelt two of]] [[UsefulNotes/JohnFKennedy his successors]], dying nearly 32 years after his term was over in late 1964.[[note]]Conspiracy theorists who whisper about the Presidential Guard rehearsing a funeral shortly before Kennedy's assassination forget or omit that the Guard was actually rehearsing for Hoover, whose death had been expected. As it turned out, he held on for a year.[[/note]] With Roosevelt and Kennedy having died in office, Hoover’s death was also the first death of a former president since Coolidge’s all the way back in 1933.[[note]]He's also the most recent ex-president who died during a campaign period. Out of respect, then-President UsefulNotes/LyndonJohnson and his challenger UsefulNotes/BarryGoldwater suspended their campaigns for a week.[[/note]] And he lived through three of the four presidential assassinations (in addition to Kennedy, he was also alive when UsefulNotes/JamesGarfield and UsefulNotes/WilliamMcKinley met their respective ends, and indeed was born only nine years after UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln was assassinated).

He's also the only president born in and native to Iowa, although when elected he legally resided in UsefulNotes/{{California}} (making him the first of three Californian presidents, UsefulNotes/RichardNixon--a Southern California boy born and raised, and incidentally also the only other president to have been a Quaker--and the Illinois-born UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan being the other two; and of the three, he is the only one whose connections were to Northern California--his mining firm's offices were in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco). Either way, he was the first president born in and elected from a state west of the Mississippi River. Also, "The Star-Spangled Banner" officially became the country's national anthem, and the Empire State Building was completed, both in 1931. Alongside his predecessor Coolidge, he is one of only two presidents to be sworn into office by a former president.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft, who was president from 1909 to 1913, served as chief justice of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1930, in which capacity he swore in Coolidge at his second inauguration in 1925 and Hoover at his own inauguration in 1929.[[/note]]

He's also the only president born in and native to Iowa, although when elected he legally resided in UsefulNotes/{{California}} (making him the first of three Californian presidents, UsefulNotes/RichardNixon--a Southern California boy born and raised, and incidentally also the only other president to have been a Quaker--and the Illinois-born UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan being the other two; and of the three, he is the only one whose connections were to Northern California--his mining firm's offices were in UsefulNotes/SanFrancisco). Either way, he was the first president born in and elected from a state west of the Mississippi River. Also, "The Star-Spangled Banner" officially became the country's national anthem, and the Empire State Building was completed, both in 1931. Alongside Coolidge, he is one of only two presidents sworn in by a former president.[[note]]UsefulNotes/WilliamHowardTaft, who was president from 1909 to 1913, served as chief justice of the United States from 1921 until his death in 1930, in which capacity he swore in Coolidge at his second inauguration in 1925 and Hoover at his own inauguration in 1929.[[/note]]

And in case you were wondering: no, he and longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover were not related in any way. Nor did either man have anything to do with the manufacture of vacuum cleaners (although two ''different'' men named "Herbert Hoover" were in charge of the company of that name during its history). Margaret Hoover, a staffer in the UsefulNotes/GeorgeWBush administration and the current host of ''Series/FiringLine'', is his great-granddaughter.

->(Oh yeah; that IronicEcho you're probably equating with President UsefulNotes/JimmyCarter?)

!!Herbert Hoover in fiction

And in case you were wondering: no, he and longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover were not related in any way. Nor did either man have anything to do with the manufacture of vacuum cleaners (although two ''different'' men named "Herbert Hoover" were in charge of the company of that name during its history). Margaret Hoover, a Republican strategist and the current host of ''Series/FiringLine'', is his great-granddaughter.

And in case you were wondering: no, he and longtime FBI head J. Edgar Hoover were not related in any way. Nor did either man have anything to do with the manufacture of vacuum cleaners (although two ''different'' men named "Herbert Hoover" were in charge of the company of that name during its history).