By Thomas F. Schwartz COVID-19 symptoms—fever, chills, cough, night sweats, fatigue, and weight loss---bear a striking similarity to a disease that was prominent during the presidency of Herbert Hoover. Tuberculosis [TB] has afflicted people from earliest recorded history. It usually affects the lungs and was often referred to as consumption because of weight loss and … Continue reading A Diva’s Death: Tuberculosis during the Presidency of Herbert Hoover
Picking up a thread dropped months ago, I resume my series on Hoover’s interactions with American Presidents. Beginning with Franklin Roosevelt, connections get deep. In fact, there have been book-length explorations of Hoover’s ties to FDR, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. Rather than recap them, I suggest that those who want to know the rest … Continue reading Hoover and 20th Century Presidents: Franklin Roosevelt
Working at home due to covid-19, I am trying to adjust to the new normal. As a die-hard baseball fan, my adjustment may have been eased if I had baseball to watch. Alas, public health and reasonable prudence dictates that there will be no major league baseball until this crisis has passed. Sad, sobering and … Continue reading Opening Day, Baseball and Tough Times
Recently, the Wall Street Journal printed a review of American Queenmaker, Julie Des Jardins’s biography of Marie Mattingly Meloney. I read this review avidly, for Meloney was one of the many strong-minded women whose careers intersected with Herbert Hoover’s public service. At a time when few women sat in the editor’s chair, Meloney was editor … Continue reading Women’s History Sources at the Hoover Library: Marie Meloney-American Queenmaker
By Thomas F. Schwartz, Director, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum Paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th. It was given new meaning when we received word to close the museum and library to the public until public health officials determined that the coronavirus spread through public transmission had abated. This decision was not … Continue reading Persistence Prevails When All Else Fails
Lou Hoover was in the midst of her second tenure as President of the Girl Scouts in October 1936 when she received a letter from Jean Magee. Magee was a high school junior tasked with writing a term paper on ‘The American Girl.’ She judged Lou Hoover to be the best authority on the subject. … Continue reading Lou Hoover and ‘The American Girl’
Several years ago a colleague and I presented on women’s history sources at the Hoover Library to the Women and Gender Historians of the Midwest. Attendees were surprised to discover that the Hoover Library held more than thirty collections documenting women. To celebrate Women’s History Month this year, we will feature some of these women’s … Continue reading Women’s History Sources at the Hoover Library: Rosalie Slaughter Morton-Woman Surgeon
Anna Phillips, of West Union, Iowa, wrote to Mrs. Herbert Hoover on October 4, 1929: ‘We small town folk of Iowa, are trying eagerly to gather authentic information about some of the policies President Hoover is bringing to public attention…. Our Woman’s Club has an October 23rd program discussing Our President and His South American … Continue reading West Union, Iowa Women’s Club Program, 1929
In honor of Presidents Day, I resume my series on Hoover’s interactions with American Presidents. In our last episode, I left Hoover at Warren Harding’s death bed in August 1923. After Harding died, Vice President Calvin Coolidge rose to the office of President. Coolidge, described as a ‘Puritan in Babylon’ by one writer, could not … Continue reading Hoover and 20th Century Presidents: Calvin Coolidge
By Thomas F. Schwartz Having just watched the academy awards, it is appropriate to ask if Herbert Hoover was a film buff. The simple answer is “yes!” As Secretary of Commerce, Hoover helped promote the emerging U.S. film industry at home and abroad. He was good friends with studio mogul Louis B. Mayer of MGM … Continue reading Watching Movies on a Battleship
