Today is the anniversary of the birth of Herbert Hoover. Here is the info on him that you can find on this web site for every President.
- NAME – Herbert Clark Hoover
- NICKNAME(S) – Chief / the Great Engineer
- BIRTH / DEATH – Aug. 10, 1874 West Branch, Iowa / New York City (age 90)
- FATHER – blacksmith, farm implement business
- MOTHER – housewife, seamstress, minister
- COLLEGE – George Fox University / Stanford (geology degree)
- WIFE – Lou Henry
- KIDS – 2 sons
- PETS – collie (Glen); Malamute (Yukon); Irish wolfhound (Patrick); setter (Eaglehurst Gillette); elkhound (Weejie); fox terriers (Big Ben & Sonnie); shepherds (King Tut & Pat); opossum
- RELIGION – Quaker
- ANCESTRY – Swiss – German
- AGE – 54
FIRSTS:
– first born west of the Mississippi
– first President to have a phone on his desk (the others it was in the hall)
MA AND PA: His father left the farm to become a blacksmith. He was successful and sold out to open a retail business selling everything from sewing machines to farm equipment. He bought a two story house in town and got involved in town politics, serving as assessor and councilman. He was a leading member of the Quaker community. The town was shocked by his death from rheumatism of the heart at age 34. He was beloved. He had married a childhood sweetheart who was born in Canada and was college-educated. Hulda insisted on investing the insurance money for the children’s education and they lost the house. She worked as a seamstress to make ends meet. She became a Quaker minister and was a leader in the temperance movement. She died after insisting on walking home several miles to be with her kids after preaching. She caught pneumonia and also died at 34. Herbert was 8. Parents
BACKGROUND:
– both parents died when he was young
– at age 10, he moved to Oregon to live with his uncle
– he went to Stanford to become a mining engineer
– mining engineer in China, Africa, and Europe
– during WWI, helped refugees in Belgium
– head of the Food Administration
– Secretary of Commerce for Harding and Coolidge
FIRST LADY: Lou grew up a tomboy. Her father would take her camping, horse-back riding, and hiking. She got a certificate from a teacher’s college, but her first job was in her father’s bank. She then went to Stanford where she was the only woman majoring in geology. She met her future husband in a science lab. Herbert proposed to her via telegram when he was working as a mining engineer in China. She joined him there for their honeymoon. They were in Beijing at the time of the Boxer Rebellion and she was almost killed when a shell fragment hit near her. She continued playing solitaire as thought nothing had happened. From China, they moved to London and then lived in France, Russia, Burma, Korea, and Japan. Lou spoke four languages, including Chinese. During WWI, she helped her husband provide relief in Belgium. Back in Washington, she pushed for physical education for girls. As First Lady, she invited black congresswomen to tea in the White House, but she was less compassionate toward the mainly black servants. She insisted on using hand signals during formal affairs. Kelly 333-334
RETIREMENT:
– Truman and Eisenhower appointed him to commissions to reform the executive departments
– Truman appointed him to head the international Famine Relief Commission; he visited 25 countries in less than two months
– he lived on the 31st floor of New York City’s Waldorf Towers in an apartment that cost $32,00 a year; he lived there for the rest of his thirty years
TRIVIA:
– as President, he signed the congressional resolution making the “Star Spangled Banner” the national anthem
– he donated his salary to charity
– his son had two pet crocodiles
– he wrote two books: “The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson” and “The Principles of Mining”
– he met his wife when they were attending Stanford
– when he became Food Administrator, he stopped signing his name with the C. for his middle initial, figuring it would save him a half hour per week
– after he became a partner in a mining company, it was revealed that a senior partner had embezzled a million dollars; although not liable, he convinced the partners to chip in and repay their clients; he went broke, but it was temporary
– his efforts as Food Administrator cut food consumption 15%
– after WWI, he founded the American Relief Administration to aid Europe; in Poland, a parade of children greeted him with a banner reading “God Bless Herbert Hoover”; at one point during the parade, some of the children ran away and returned with a rabbit for him
– he decided that “depression” sounded better than “panic” or “crisis”
– under Truman, Congress passed a resolution renaming Boulder Dam after him
– he and his wife would talk in Chinese for private conversations
– during the Depression, he insisted on seven course meals to keep the public’s morale up; he smoked 20 Cuban cigars a day; he never visited a soup kitchen or bread line; the federal government agreed to spend $25 million to feed farm animals, but he refused to spend $120,000 to feed people
– when Hoover invited the African-American wife of a Congressman, he was officially denounced by the Texas state legislature
– Hoover and his wife did not want to see servants. Whenever they walked inside the White House, servants had to duck into closets.
– Hoover claimed that the reason why there were so many apple-sellers was because men left their jobs for the more profitable job of selling apples on street corners
– Hoover would work out with a medicine ball at 7 A.M. The friends and government officials who joined him became known as the “Medicine Ball Cabinet”
– five weeks after his birth, Herbert, Jr. went on a mining expedition to Australia with his parents; he went around the world three times by age 4 / he later lost hearing in his left ear due to the flu pandemic of 1918 Sadler 261
ANECDOTES
CAR THIEF PARDON – Hoover got a reputation for not caring about people’s problems which was unfair. In 1932, in the depths of the Depression, three kids from Detroit walked all the way to Washington to see the President. Their father was in jail for car theft. When Hoover found out how far they had come, he decided to see them. First, he found out that their father had been arrested for stealing a car so he could look for work. After talking to the kids he promised them he would get their father free. He told a subordinate that the father deserved a second chance if he had kids that faithful to him. Calls were made and the father was freed. Hoover’s press secretary wanted to make a big deal of Hoover’s humanity, but the President insisted on only a brief announcement. Kelly 172-3
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