Herbert Hoover

by Glen Jeansonne

  The presidential library housed every book, dissertation, and master’s thesis written on Hoover. I read all of the books and most of the dissertations, as well as many theses. My research assistants photocopied hundreds of magazine and newspaper articles, too numerous to list individually, set aside by me. A collection of unpublished diaries at the presidential library proved vital. The most important were the Joel T. Boone Diary, the Theodore G. Joslin Diary, the James H. MacLafferty Diary (copyright Stanford University), the Henry L. Stimson Diary (microfilm edition), and the Edgar Rickard Diary.

  I methodically combed the Hoover papers at the presidential library, organized chronologically by period. These included the Pre-Commerce Period, the Commerce Period, the Campaign and Transition Period, the Presidential Period, and the Post-Presidential File. I studied “The Bible,” a set of books containing typed copies of Hoover’s articles, addresses, and public statements, 1892–1964. I examined collections of papers of George Edward Akerson, the American Child Health Association, the American Relief Administration Bulletin, the Lawrence Richey Papers, and the Allan Hoover Papers.

  At the Hoover Institution Archives at Stanford I examined the George Barr Baker Papers, the Herbert Hoover Subject Collection, the Edward Eyre Hunt Papers, the Mark Sullivan Papers, and the Ray Lyman Wilbur Papers. All of these men were intimate friends of Hoover, and their papers revealed numerous insights into Hoover’s work and his personality.

  My days at the Hoover Library and the Hoover Institution were devoted to note taking and setting aside longer material for photocopying. Away from the libraries I read and took notes on the photocopied documents as well as on books, articles, dissertations and theses, and my massive mound of photocopied data. On weekends in West Branch I also enjoyed the camaraderie at Herb and Lou’s tavern, directly below the apartment I rented, and at Palo Alto, Lauren and I enjoyed the local restaurants and markets and spent weekends as tourists in San Francisco.

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  The best overviews of Hoover’s life to date are David Burner’s Herbert Hoover: A Public Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979), and Richard Norton Smith, An Uncommon Man: The Triumph of Herbert Hoover (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984). Both are dated, and Burner stops in 1933, although Hoover lived until 1964. David M. Kennedy provides a fair overview of Hoover’s presidency in the early chapters of Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). Joan Hoff, Herbert Hoover: Forgotten Progressive (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1975), is compact and fair. Wilton Eckley, Herbert Hoover (Boston: Twayne, 1980), is another succinct biography. David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker (New York: Farrar, Straus and Company, 1950), includes thoughtful personality analysis. The best popular biography, although unfootnoted, is Alfred Steinberg, Herbert Hoover (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1967). Another view of Hoover’s personality is included in a study by his press secretary, Theodore G. Joslin, Hoover Off the Record (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1934; repr., New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1971). Craig Lloyd’s Aggressive Introvert: Herbert Hoover and Public Relations Management, 1912–1932 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1972), brims with keen observations. William E. Leuchtenburg has written two broad studies chiefly about the Quaker, Herbert Hoover (New York: Henry Holt, 2009), and The Perils of Prosperity, 1914–1932 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958). Frank T. Nye, Doors of Opportunity: The Life and Legacy of Herbert Hoover (West Branch, IA: Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, Inc., 1988), complements the other Hoover biographies. Catherine Owens Peare, The Herbert Hoover Story (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1965), adds to the long list of Hoover biographies. Hal Wert has written the best monograph about Hoover’s hobby and includes rich biographical data: Hoover: The Fishing President: Portrait of the Private Man and His Life Outdoors (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2005). Harold Wolfe wrote a fond portrait, Herbert Hoover: Public Servant and Leader of the Loyal Opposition (New York: Exposition Press, 1956). Eugene Lyons has written a penetrating general biography, Herbert Hoover: A Biography (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964). Another portrait is Dorothy Horton McGee, Herbert Hoover: Engineer, Humanitarian, Statesman (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, Inc., 1967). Among the complete biographies, another capable one is Carol Green Wilson, Herbert Hoover: A Challenge for Today (New York: Exposition Press, 1968).

  Any reader interested in the early life of Herbert Hoover should begin with George H. Nash’s three monumental tomes, which carry the story of Hoover’s life to 1918: The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Engineer, 1874–1914 (New York: Norton, 1983); The Life of Herbert Hoover: The Humanitarian, 1914–1917 (New York: Norton, 1988); and The Life of Herbert Hoover: Master of Emergencies, 1917–1918 (New York: Norton, 1986). Nash has also written an account of Hoover’s collegiate years as well as his lifelong connection with his alma mater in Herbert Hoover and Stanford University (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1988). Hoover himself provides great detail in volume 1 of his memoirs, Years of Adventure, 1874–1920 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1951), and recounts his childhood with brevity in A Boyhood in Iowa (New York: Aventine Press, 1931). Hoover reminisces about fishing in Fishing for Fun—and to Wash Your Soul, edited by William Nichols (West Branch, IA: Hoover Presidential Library Association, 1963). Also see Mitchell V. Charnley, The Boy’s Life of Herbert Hoover (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931); William Hard, Who’s Hoover? (New York, 1928); Will Irwin (a journalist friend of Hoover’s), Herbert Hoover: A Reminiscent Biography (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1928); Vernon Kellogg (another Hoover friend), Herbert Hoover: The Man and His Work (New York: Appleton and Company, 1920); Rose Wilder Lane, The Making of Herbert Hoover (New York: Century, 1920), a superficial sketch; Walter Liggett, The Rise of Herbert Hoover (New York: H. K. Fly Company, 1932); and Earl Reeves, This Man Hoover (New York: A. L. Burt Company, 1928). The bulk of these are superficial, written primarily before Hoover went into politics, but some, written by persons who knew Hoover quite well personally, include original insights into his personality.

  Hoover wrote highly detailed accounts of his relief efforts during and after the Great War, including America’s First Crusade (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938) and in volumes, cumulatively entitled An American Epic, all published by Henry Regnery (Chicago) over the span from 1959 to 1964. Frank M. Surface ably describes Hoover’s organization of the agricultural sector during and after World War I in American Food in the World War and Reconstruction Period: Operations of the Organization Under the Direction of Herbert Hoover, 1914 to 1924 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1931). The Quaker describes Woodrow Wilson and his own experience at the Versailles Peace Conference in The Ordeal of Woodrow Wilson (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1958), the only biography of a president written by another president. Perhaps Hoover’s most important relief effort came in the Soviet Union while he was secretary of commerce. This gargantuan rescue is described in an 817-page book, Bertrand M. Patenaude’s The Big Show in Bololand: The American Relief Expedition to Soviet Russia in the Famine of 1921 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002). One of the more interesting chapters in Hoover’s life, his direction of massive flood relief, is described in John M. Barry, Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997). See also Pete Daniel, Deep’n as It Come: The 1927 Mississippi River Flood (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

  In his memoirs, Hoover chose to encapsulate his entire political career in volume 2, The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–1933 (New York: Macmillan Company, 1952). The most useful studies of Hoover’s economic policies, aside from those that deal with his presidency, are Kendrick A. Clements, Hoover, Conservation, and Consumerism: Engineering the Good Life (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), and Clements, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Imperfect Visionary, 1918–1928 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), which dissects Hoover’s tenu
re as secretary of commerce. Clements views Hoover as an economic seer who occasionally erred. Also useful is Joseph Brandes, Herbert Hoover and Economic Diplomacy: Department of Commerce Policy, 1921–1928 (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962). Hoover’s tenure at Commerce is also the subject of Ellis W. Hawley, ed., Herbert Hoover as Secretary of Commerce: Studies in New Era Thought and Practice (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1981). While commerce secretary, Hoover wrote American Individualism (New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, 1922), in which he defines his personal philosophy and the factors that make America unique.

  The literature on the presidency of the Quaker is not exhaustive but is varied. Among the most comprehensive are Glen Jeansonne, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928–1933 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), and Martin L. Fausold, The Presidency of Herbert C. Hoover (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1985). See also Fausold and George T. Mazuzan, eds., The Hoover Presidency: A Reappraisal (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1974). Arthur Train wrote an early defense of the Hoover administration, The Strange Attacks on Herbert Hoover: A Current Example of What We Do to Our Presidents (New York: John Day Company, 1932). Hoover’s fishing retreat from the stresses of the presidency is colorfully described in Darwin Lambert’s depiction of Camp Rapidan, his fishing camp, in Herbert Hoover’s Hideaway (Luray, VA: Shenandoah History Association, Inc., 1971).

  The best place to begin an account of the Hoover administration policies lies in volume 3 of his memoirs, The Great Depression, 1929–1941, which includes Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first two terms (New York: Macmillan Company, 1952). For an excellent general account of Hoover’s Depression policies see Harris Gaylord Warren, Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1967). A good overall description of the Depression can be found in T. H. Watkins, The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1999). Two of Hoover’s lieutenants, Ray Lyman Wilbur and Arthur Mastick Hyde, edited The Hoover Policies (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1937). Two other Hoover confederates produced The Hoover Administration: A Documented Narrative (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1936). Lee Nash, ed., Understanding Herbert Hoover: Ten Perspectives (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1987) includes a variety of essays by ten Hoover experts. Edgar Eugene Robinson and Vaughn Davis Bornet, Herbert Hoover: President of the United States (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 1975), is a character portrait with substantial insight. Timothy Walch has edited documentary collections that yielded significant letters and personal data, including Uncommon Americans: The Lives and Legacies of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2003); and with Dwight M. Miller, Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Documentary History (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998); and also with Miller, Herbert Hoover and Harry S. Truman: A Documentary History (Worland, WY: High Plains Publishing Company, 1992), which traces the blossoming of a warm friendship.

  Most books about Hoover focus on his economic policies, especially his role in the Great Depression. Among them are William J. Barber, From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). Edward Robb Ellis provides an overview in A Nation in Torment: The Great American Depression, 1929–1939 (New York: Capricorn Books, 1970), as does John A. Garraty in The Great Depression (San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), and Albert U. Romasco, The Poverty of Abundance: Hoover, the Nation, the Depression (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968). Murray N. Rothbard provides a libertarian interpretation of the Depression in America’s Great Depression (Los Angeles: Nash Publishing, 1972), as does Amity Shlaes in The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression (New York: Harper, 2008). On the opposite side of the political spectrum is Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s account in The Age of Roosevelt: The Crisis of the Old Order, 1919–1933 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957). Jordan A. Schwarz also views Hoover negatively in The Interregnum of Despair: Hoover, Congress, and the Depression (Urbana: University of Illinois Press), as does Gene Smith, The Shattered Dream: Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression (New York: William Morrow, 1970). A detailed account of the economic catastrophe is available in Charles P. Kindleberger, The World in Depression, 1929–1939, revised and enlarged edition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986). For positive revisionist essays, see Carl E. Krog and William Tanner, eds., Herbert Hoover and the Republican Era: A Reconsideration (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1984).

  Maury Klein, Rainbow’s End: The Crash of 1929 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), concentrates primarily on the stock market crash and the period preceding it. Donald J. Lisio focuses on a dramatic event during the Depression in The President and Protest: Hoover, MacArthur, and the Bonus Riot (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1974). Lisio has also written an account of racial politics in the South during the 1928 nominating campaign, Hoover, Blacks, and Lily-Whites: A Study of Southern Strategies (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985). One of Hoover’s chief tools designed to combat the Depression is the topic of James Stuart Olson, Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 1931–1933 (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1977). Perhaps the best account of Hoover’s agricultural policies is David E. Hamilton, From New Day to New Deal: American Farm Policy from Hoover to Roosevelt, 1928–1933 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991).

  Several books have been written about the Chief’s foreign policies. These include Louis P. Lochner, Herbert Hoover and Germany (New York: Macmillan Company, 1960); George J. Lerski, Herbert Hoover and Poland: A Documentary History of a Friendship (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1977); William Starr Myers, The Foreign Policies of Herbert Hoover, 1929–1933 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940); and Raymond G. O’Connor, Perilous Equilibrium: The United States and the London Naval Conference of 1930 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1969), the study of a successful naval disarmament conclave orchestrated by Hoover. Norman E. Saul, Friends or Foes: The United States and Soviet Russia, 1921–1941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2006), has exceptional insight into the mercurial relationship. L. Ethan Ellis discusses foreign policy under Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover in Republican Foreign Policy, 1921–1933 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1968). Among the most useful surveys is Robert H. Ferrell, American Diplomacy in the Great Depression: Hoover-Stimson Foreign Policy, 1929–1933 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1974).

  Lou Henry Hoover is an underrated First Lady, but a handful of sympathetic biographies exist. The best is Dale Mayer, Lou Henry Hoover: A Prototype for First Ladies (Hauppauge, NY: Nova History Company, 2004). See also Mayer’s edited work, Lou Henry Hoover: Essays on a Busy Life (Worland, WY: High Plains Publishing Company, 1994). Somewhat more recent is Nancy Beck Young, Lou Henry Hoover: Activist First Lady (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004). Lou’s definitive biography remains to be written, although her personal papers are sparse. For insights on the Hoover family see Hulda Hoover McLean, Genealogy of the Herbert Hoover Family (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 1967), as well as her Uncle Bert: A Biographical Portrait of Herbert Hoover (published by the author, 1974), and her account as compiler of the president’s mother Hulda’s World: A Chronicle of Hulda Minthorn Hoover, 1848–1884 (West Branch, IA: Hoover Presidential Library Association, 1989).

  The outstanding survey of Hoover’s postpresidential life was written by the late Gary Dean Best, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Keeper of the Torch, 1933–1964 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). The preeminent expert on Hoover’s postpresidential activities, Best wrote an earlier, more detailed two-volume account, Herbert Hoover: The Postpresidential Years, 1933–1964, vol. 1, 1933–1945, and vol. 2, 1946–1964, both published by Hoover Institution Press (Stanford, CA, 1983).

  A great deal can be gleaned from Hoover’s own books, thirty-three in all, too numerous to
cite individually. His speeches have been published in a series cumulatively entitled Addresses upon the American Road, 8 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938–61). The Chief’s study of the Great War, America’s First Crusade (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1942), was published during a writing-intensive period. The Challenge to Liberty, in which he condemned all forms of collectivism, originally written during the 1930s, was republished in Rockford, Illinois, by the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library Association, in 1971. During the Second World War Hoover wrote two books warning about the methods needed to prevent another conflagration, The Problems of Lasting Peace (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1942), and with Hugh Gibson, The Basis of Lasting Peace (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1945). Hoover’s Presidential Papers were published in four volumes between 1974 and 1977. Perhaps Hoover’s most important postwar books, dealing with attacks on the foreign and domestic policies, were not published until decades after his death: Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover’s Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath, edited by George H. Nash (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2011), and The Crusade Years, 1933–1935: Herbert Hoover’s Lost Memoir of the New Deal Era and Its Aftermath, also edited by Nash (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press, 2013). In these lengthy posthumous tomes the Quaker speaks more frankly than he had dared do during his public life. Hoover’s later writing was designed primarily to set the record straight. He became a historian of the events he had witnessed and in which he had played a role. His writing actually crested during his eighties. Both the quantity and the quality are remarkable.