Herbert Hoover’s reputation as President is quite often thought of in less favorable terms, having presided over the United States as it entered into the depths of the Great Depression in the 1930s. After the economic boom of the 1920s, the contrast was stark, and increasingly clear in Americans’ minds as Hoover’s limited attempts at intervening in the economy failed to turn things around. Judging his accomplishments in hindsight, however, including his successful business career as a mining engineer, his achievements in relief aid during World War I, and especially contrasting the lackluster performance of the US economy during FDR’s succeeding terms of 8 years until WWII, Hoover comes out as a highly competent man caught up in extremely unfortunate circumstances.
Myth of the 20th Century – Episode 181 – Herbert Hoover – Building a Legacy
— References —
– Principles of Mining, Hoover (1923)
– Essays on the History of Technology and Transportation, Kemp (2014)
– Prohibition, Burns (2011) – http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/
– The Great Depression – Origins, Myth of the 20th Century (2017) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2017/02/28/the-great-depression-origins/
– Colossus – Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century, Myth of the 20th Century (2020) – https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/colossus-hoover-dam-and-the-making-of-the-american-century/
– Hoover’s Economic Policies, Horwitz – https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/HooversEconomicPolicies.html
– PeriscopeFilm – https://www.youtube.com/user/PeriscopeFilm/
– Hoover Institution – https://www.hoover.org/
If pessimism is despair, optimism is cowardice and stupidity. -Francis Parker Yockey