Dirty tricks in political campaigns are not recent phenomena. Every American electoral cycle spawns a new reason for candidates to be justifiably paranoid. Someone is out to get them, or at least to get their political office. Those closest to the candidate, especially members of their immediate family, sometimes get caught up in the … Continue reading Political Campaigns and Dirty Tricks
by Matthew Schaefer When I give presentations to the general public within the friendly confines of the Hoover Library, I make it a point to show and share manuscripts from our collections. This is the first visit to a Presidential Library for many in my audience. Showing a folder with drafts of Herbert Hoover speeches, … Continue reading Lou Henry Hoover on the Middle Class
by Spencer Howard In 1928, the press reported a narrow escape from injury by Lou Hoover, then the wife of Secretary of Commerce and Presidential hopeful, Herbert Hoover: MRS HOOVER ESCAPES INJURIES IN CAR CRASH Secretary's wife and two friends leap from auto hanging at bridge edge Washington Star, March 18, 1928 Winchester, March 17 … Continue reading Lou Henry Hoover’s Narrow Escape?
by Matthew Schaefer Later this July, baseball’s annual All-Star Game will take place in Washington DC. Among the featured stories that week will be the brutal heat and humidity attendant on any summer event in Washington. Washington’s weather in the summer should surprise no one as the town is laid out on what had been … Continue reading Washington in the Summer
Part 2 By Matthew Schaeffer Visitors to the Herbert Hoover Museum will find nearly seven hundred artifacts on display to tell his life story. There is an entire exhibit case dedicated to documenting the Hoovers’ time in the White House. It contains scores of artifacts, and it can be overwhelming. One artifact that escaped my … Continue reading The End of the First Hoover Ball Era
by Spencer Howard When Hoover became President in 1929, he decided to build a weekend retreat – a fishing camp – some place where he could escape from Washington and unwind. He chose a site on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia about 100 miles from Washington, where two small streams … Continue reading The President’s Mountain School
by Matthew Schaefer In the course of her life, Lou Henry Hoover gave many addresses to graduating classes: Radcliffe, Bryn Mawr and Whittier Colleges, Stanford University, and Castilla high school. The first time that she spoke to a graduating class occurred in 1890, when sixteen year old Lou Henry spoke as valedictorian to her Bailey … Continue reading Another Lou Henry Hoover Commencement Address
While on the subject [howsoever narrow] of Hoovers speaking at Stanford commencements, I would be remiss not to note that Lou Henry Hoover contributed to the oeuvre. Lou Henry Hoover was one of three speakers tapped to address the graduates at Stanford’s fiftieth anniversary, June 15, 1941. She was the first woman to address Stanford’s … Continue reading Rites of Spring: Lou Henry Hoover’s Commencement Address at Stanford, 1941
On April 29, 1931 several precedents were set at a State Dinner at the White House. The Hoovers hosted King Prajadhipok and Queen Rambai, monarchs of Siam. This was the first State Dinner where an ‘Oriental monarch’ met with the President. It was also the first time that the ruling monarch sat at the … Continue reading State Dinner at the Hoover White House for the King and Queen of Siam
By Thomas F. Schwartz Before the invention of IMAX projection and Circle Vision 360, the viewing public was dazzled by panoramic paintings called cycloramas. Dating from 1787 and reaching its height of popularity by 1900, cycloramas depicted beautiful landscapes or great historic events. Created by producing multiple oil paintings that could be assembled in the … Continue reading “What a wonderful panorama!” Lou Henry Hoover’s idea for picturing America.
