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.
- Listen now:
Playlist:
Fanfare
Opening Theme
“It Had to Be You”
By Isham Jones and Gus Kahn. Public domain.
Performed by Frank Milne. Public domain piano roll, transcribed for MIDI by Kevin Chan and used with permission. Thanks, Kevin! Source.
Closing Theme
Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.
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.