by Spencer Howard On September 17, 1930, Secretary of the Interior Ray Lyman Wilbur journeyed to the Nevada desert to drive a silver railroad spike, marking an end and a beginning. The spike commemorated the completion of a railroad from Las Vegas to Black Canyon, which was to be the site of an enormous new … Continue reading What’s in a Name? The Saga of the Hoover Dam
Herbie the cat sits on top his house in front of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. ca. 1996 In honor of International Cat Day, August 8, 2019, I would like to take the time to remember Herbie the Cat. Herbie was an adult stray or runaway cat that appeared at the Herbert Hoover … Continue reading Herbie the Cat
By Thomas F. Schwartz On March 30, 1932, a letter was sent to President Herbert Hoover from a young boy in Jackson, Tennessee along with a photograph. Perhaps his first letter ever written to a President, the young man wrote: Mr. Herbert Hoover This letter is going to be different from any other I … Continue reading A Boy Named Herbert Hoover
by Spencer Howard After the demise of the first SS President Hoover, the precarious financial situation of the Dollar Line led the U.S. Maritime Commission to take control of the line in late 1938, and the name of the company was changed to American President Lines Ltd. Instead of the $ sign that had graced … Continue reading SS President Hoover (2)
by Spencer Howard With the recent advances in astronomy, there are now over 300,000 known asteroids in our solar system, though only about 16,000 have been given names. Four of them have been named to honor the humanitarian work of Herbert Hoover. In 1920, Johann Palisa, an astronomer at the University of Vienna in Austria, … Continue reading Up in the Sky – it’s Hooveria
by Spencer Howard Before the days of international air travel, when passenger liners ruled the oceans and crossings were measured in days instead of hours, two passenger liners were named in honor of President Hoover. On December 9, 1930, the first SS President Hoover was christened by First Lady Lou Henry Hoover in Newport News, … Continue reading SS PresidentHoover
It should come as no surprise that Herbert Hoover and J. Edgar Hoover were frequently confused during their lives and remain so in death. The two men were not related, and they first crossed paths in Washington in the early 1920s. While the Clint Eastwood film has a scene depicting Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone … Continue reading A Tale of Two Hoovers
A story that Herbert Hoover liked to tell concerned one of the more unusual tributes given by a grateful people in honor of Hoover’s humanitarian service. He describes it in An American Epic: “I received many marks of appreciation from the Poles—a square named for me in Warsaw, streets in Cracow and other towns, a … Continue reading Herbert Hoover Looses his Head
