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
By Thomas F. Schwartz As a previous blog post indicated, Americans who signed the pledge to conserve food were encouraged to forgo meat at one meal each day and on Tuesday, the entire day. On Monday, supper was the designated meal to be meatless. In Hoover’s day, breakfast was the first meal of the day … Continue reading A Recipe Idea for Meatless Monday
I cannot imagine Herbert Hoover, at any age or in any context, attending Mardi Gras or any such foofaraw. The man, the mien, and Mardi Gras beads just do not mix. My mind is not that plastic. Evidently Florida Senator Duncan Upshaw Fletcher had a broader perspective. He wrote to Hoover on December 15, 1928, … Continue reading Herbert Hoover and the Gasparilla Pirate Festival
My office mate and I had a conversation about Ozymandias, a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley more than two hundred years ago. Fragments of the poem rattled in my memory; my colleague knew it by heart. Lines that stuck with me: ‘And on the pedestal these words appear/ ‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings/ … Continue reading Hoover, and Other Heads of the American State
