It was a midterm election year, the economy was beginning tolook a bit shaky again, and the Democrats were in danger of losing their majoritiesin Congress. The Democratic President, gathering his congressional troopsin the White House to rally them ahead of a tough campaign, knew just the rightnote to strike.  He acknowledged that the economy was a problem, but thePresident reminded his fellow Democrats that whatever happened their partywould never let the economic burden fall upon the American people as HerbertHoover had during the Great Depression.

The President in question was not Hoover’s successor,Franklin Roosevelt, nor was it Harry Truman or even John F. Kennedy.  ThePresident was Lyndon Johnson, the year was 1966 and Herbert Hoover, had, bynow, been out of office for 33 long years.

Hoover, who had been known as the Great Humanitarian beforehe assumed the office of the presidency in the 1929, was, for the rest of hislife, the symbol of an uncaring and aloof government, and the noose around theRepublican party’s electoral chances for over three decades.

Historians, most of whom lived through the Great Depressionand admired FDR’s New Deal initially played a key role in making sure that thisnegative image of Hoover stuck, but since his death in 1964, America’s firstQuaker President has gone through a reassessment that has attempted torehabilitate Hoover in the eyes of the American people.  

Today on American History Too! we ask the simplequestion, does Hoover deserve this reassessment, or does he deserve to beremembered as one of the worst presidents to ever occupy 1600 PennsylvaniaAvenue?  To help us with this task, we're joined once again by the University of Edinburgh's Alastair Duthie (@d_alastair)

We also discuss our favourite and least favourite campaign slogans - thanks to Dafydd Townley for the question! 

Cheers again for listening,

Mark and Malcolm

Reading List

-       Faushold, Martin L. The Presidency ofHerbert Hoover (Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1985)

-       Jeansonne, Glen, The Life of Herbert Hoover: Fighting Quaker, 1928-1933 (NewYork:  Palgrave MacMillan, 2012)

-       Hoover, Herbert. The Memoirs of HerbertHoover. 3 vols. (New York: Macmillan Co., 1951)

-       Kennedy, David, Freedom from Fear (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999)

-       Leuchtenburg, William E. The Perils ofProsperity, 1914-1932. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958)

-       Rauchway, Eric, The Great Depression and New Deal: A very short introduction (New York: Oxofrd University Press, 2008)

-       Wilson, Joan Hoff. Herbert Hoover:Forgotten Progressive, (Boston:Little, Brown & Co., 1975)