The year 1927 saw historic flooding in the Mississippi Valley. Hundreds of thousands were left homeless. Most of the victims were African American, but flood relief mainly went to whites.
Herbert Hoover, who had been called “The Great Humanitarian,” was put in charge of flood relief. But even as the Mississippi receded, a different kind of flood was affecting Wall Street and the global economy.
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With all the negativity on Hoover in this episode it is a bit sad to see the massive relief efforts in Europe and post civil war USSR overseen by him not mentioned.
I call them as I see them, and in fact in this episode I felt like I was bending over backward to depict Hoover favorably, so I’m not sure what this “negativity” is that you refer to. As for his earlier accomplishments, I talked about his role in rescuing Americans from Europe, providing food relief to Belgium, and as “food czar” in wartime America in ep. 158. I mentioned his role in distributing Allied food aid after the war in ep. 197. I described how he counseled Warren Harding to come clean on his administration’s scandals in episode 228. I mentioned his role in negotiating Allied war debts in ep. 233. I described his role in creating the regulatory framework for the US broadcasting industry in episodes 236 and 237. I think that’s more than adequate coverage.
What were your sources for this podcast? I’m writing my father-in-law and my father’s stories of growing up in a small town of Clinton, IA and on a farm in Moravia, IA (ironically, I do not live in Iowa) in the late-1930’s pre-WWII. I am not an academic but would like to put some “color” onto their community surroundings as they graduated from high school and joined the Navy for WWII. For example, did they have running water and septic and phone and 5G internet? How did the Depression affect small railroad towns like Clinton or even smaller farming towns like Moravia? What was the American mindset as Europe and Asia entered conflicts? Wikipedia is a little short on commentary. Your flooding story is the kind of information I’d like to find. Listening since the beginning, patreon for couple of years.
Re Herbert Hoover: I was an academic geologist for 20 years and taught Intro Geology about 19 times. A couple of weeks into each semester, in introducing minerals, I would mention a few tidbits from history. One of these is that the state of knowledge of minerals in Renaissance time was recorded by Georgius Agricola in De re Metallica, published in the mid-16th century. That book was not translated into English until 1912; the translators were Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover in 1912. Very impressive!
A second note about Hoover is that his Presidential Library & Museum is located in West Branch, Iowa, about ten miles east of Iowa City. In the early 2000s, I drove to Iowa City to watch the Big Ten Wrestling Championships at the University of Iowa. I also made time to visit the Herbert Hoover museum. Although it has been a long time since I visited, I remember being very impressed with the grounds and museum. It is only a few miles off of Interstate-80, so it is very easy to get to. I highly recommend it to history lovers (and those wanting a break from the views of corn and soybean fields of Iowa).
One other thought on Hoover winning the 1928 presidential election…
Hoover taking over from Coolidge in 1929 reminds me of a conversation I had with my brother just after George Bush (senior) was elected in November 1988 to take over from Ronald Reagan. My brother and I likened Reagan-to-Bush as eerily similar to Coolidge-to-Hoover. Both Coolidge and Reagan presided over a time of low regulation (for Reagan, it was deregulation, such as with savings and loans) and relatively low taxes. During Reagan’s tenure, taxes were cut, primarily for the wealthy, while the military budget was doubled. Both the 1920s and 1980s were a party for many, especially the well-to-do. In both the 1920s and 1980s, the party crashed at the end of the decade, and Hoover and Bush were left holding the (party) bag. During my ten-year high school reunion in 1984 (on the Queen Mary in Long Beach Harbor), many of my friends (my high school was in primarily Republican suburb of L.A.) were doing very well and thought that Reagan was the bees-knees. Just a few years later, California experienced the “depression” of 1989 (which was how that economic downturn was referred to in California). Amazing that throwing a party for much of a decade and not paying for it would have ramifications!