The New York Press Club , sometimes NYPC , is a private nonprofit membership organization which promotes journalism in the New York City metropolitan area . It is unaffiliated with any government organization and abstains from politics. While the club is headquarters in New York City, it serves as an association for journalists based in the United States .
170-708: The organization in differing forms has been around since the nineteenth century. In 1887, its members erected a 38-foot obelisk to mark the gravesite of a deceased reporter. But during the Great Depression in the United States , the organization fell apart. A revitalized organization was founded in 1948 as the New York Newspaper Reporters Association, and its name was changed to its current one in 1972. In conjunction with its foundation, New York Press Club Foundation ,
340-702: A Great Contraction of the economy from 1929 until the New Deal began in 1933. This view was endorsed by Fed Governor Ben Bernanke who in 2002 said in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz: Let me end my talk by abusing slightly my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again. — Ben S. Bernanke The Wall Street Crash of 1929
510-748: A Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa , Hoover grew up in Oregon . He was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895. Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China. He rapidly became a wealthy mining engineer. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I , he organized and headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium . When
680-626: A "third alternative" between "unrestrained capitalism" and socialism , which was becoming increasingly popular in Europe. Hoover sought to foster a balance among labor, capital, and the government, and for this, he has been variously labeled a corporatist or an associationalist . A high priority was economic diplomacy, including promoting the growth of exports, as well as protection against monopolistic practices of foreign governments, especially regarding rubber and coffee. Hoover demanded, and received, authority to coordinate economic affairs throughout
850-497: A London-based independent mining consultant and financier. Though he had risen to prominence as a geologist and mine operator, Hoover focused much of his attention on raising money, restructuring corporate organizations, and financing new ventures. He specialized in rejuvenating troubled mining operations, taking a share of the profits in exchange for his technical and financial expertise. Hoover thought of himself and his associates as "engineering doctors to sick concerns", and he earned
1020-433: A classmate named Lou Henry , though his financial situation precluded marriage at that time. The daughter of a banker from Monterey, California , Lou Henry decided to study geology at Stanford after attending a lecture delivered by John C. Branner . Immediately after earning a promotion in 1898, Hoover cabled Lou Henry, asking her to marry him. After she cabled back her acceptance of the proposal, Hoover briefly returned to
1190-597: A contender in the 1920 presidential election. Hoover's wartime push for higher taxes, criticism of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer 's actions during the First Red Scare , and his advocacy for measures such as the minimum wage , forty-eight-hour workweek, and elimination of child labor made him appealing to progressives of both parties. Despite his service in the Democratic administration of Woodrow Wilson, Hoover had never been closely affiliated with either
1360-539: A critical food situation; Hoover estimated that as many as 400 million people faced the possibility of starvation. The United States Food Administration became the American Relief Administration (ARA), and Hoover was charged with providing food to Central and Eastern Europe. In addition to providing relief, the ARA rebuilt infrastructure in an effort to rejuvenate the economy of Europe. Throughout
1530-484: A deficit for the first time (the deficit was less than 2.8% of GDP). By the end of 1931, Hoover had decided to recommend a large increase in taxes to balance the budget; in addition, Congress approved the tax increase in 1932, a substantial reduction in personal immunity to increase the number of taxpayers, and the interest rates had risen sharply, the lowest marginal rate rose from 25% on taxable income in excess of $ 100,000 to 63% on taxable income in excess of $ 1 million as
1700-453: A future presidential bid throughout the 1920s, but he carefully avoided alienating Coolidge, who possibly could have run for another term in the 1928 presidential election . Along with the rest of the nation, he was surprised when Coolidge announced in August 1927 that he would not seek another term. With the impending retirement of Coolidge, Hoover immediately emerged as the front-runner for
1870-586: A huge crowd that he would continue the policies of the Harding and Coolidge administrations. The Democrats nominated New York governor Al Smith , who became the first Catholic major party nominee for president. Hoover submitted his resignation as Commerce Secretary on July 7, but Coolidge kept him on until August 21 to wind up pending business. Hoover centered his campaign around the Republican record of peace and prosperity, as well as his own reputation as
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#17327832096672040-470: A job to anyone who showed up at the factory gate. The war brought a restoration of prosperity and hopeful expectations for the future across the nation. It had the greatest impact on the cities of the West Coast, especially Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. Economic historians led by Price Fishback have examined the impact of New Deal spending on improving health conditions in
2210-545: A large property on the remote north coast of Santa Cruz County. The Theodore J. Hoover Natural Preserve is now part of Big Basin State Park . World War I broke out in August 1914, pitting Germany and its allies against France and its allies. The German Schlieffen plan was to achieve a quick victory by marching through neutral Belgium to envelop the French Army east of Paris. The maneuver failed to reach Paris but
2380-640: A mine scout for a year, Hoover was hired by Bewick, Moreing & Co. ("Bewick"), a London-based company that operated gold mines in Western Australia . He first went to Coolgardie , then the center of the Eastern Goldfields , which was actually in Western Australia , receiving a $ 5,000 salary (equivalent to $ 183,120 in 2023). Conditions were harsh in the goldfields; Hoover described the Coolgardie and Murchison rangelands on
2550-493: A model Uniform Vehicle Code for adoption by the states and a Model Municipal Traffic Ordinance for adoption by cities. Both were widely influential, promoting greater uniformity between jurisdictions and tending to promote the automobile's priority in city streets. Phillips Payson O'Brien argues that Hoover had a Britain problem. He had spent so many years living in Britain and Australia, as an employee of British companies, there
2720-606: A normal part of economic life. Worried depositors started to withdraw savings, so the money multiplier worked in reverse. Banks were forced to liquidate assets (such as calling in loans rather than creating new loans). This caused the money supply to shrink and the economy to contract (the Great Contraction ), resulting in a significant decline in aggregate investment. The decreased money supply further aggravated price deflation , putting more pressure on already struggling businesses. The U.S. Government 's commitment to
2890-475: A number of important political analyses on the subjugation of Black women, termed "triple exploitation" by Louise Thompson Patterson in her 1936 article "Toward a Brighter Dawn." As the Great Depression trekked onward, homelessness spiked. For the first time in American history, the issue of homelessness was brought to the forefront of the public eye. In search of work, men would board trains and travel across
3060-477: A physician or a midwife to perform the abortion. The Comstock laws effectively prevented women from accessing or talking about contraception until 1950 when it was repealed with the Griswold v. Connecticut case. Only a few states allowed physicians to provide information and contraception. Despite this, women and companies found ways around this law to receive and provide birth control. The most popular method
3230-552: A press conference, in which the reporter's questions went unanswered, the club wrote a letter to Trump in Acosta's defense. The current president is Jane Tillman Irving, who took office in 2018; she is retired from WCBS NewsRadio. The foundation also offers scholarships to local journalism students. Awards are given in categories such as writing, editing, and video production. Its awards are often cited by publishers and newspapers and reporters. They include: Great Depression in
3400-671: A reputation as a "doctor of sick mines". He made investments on every continent and had offices in San Francisco; London; New York City; Paris; Petrograd ; and Mandalay , British Burma . By 1914, Hoover was a very wealthy man, with an estimated personal fortune of $ 4 million (equivalent to $ 121.67 million in 2023). Hoover co-founded the Zinc Corporation to extract zinc near the Australian city of Broken Hill , New South Wales . The Zinc Corporation developed
3570-436: A result caused several of the everyday individuals to speculate on the economy in the coming months. Rumors of market stability and banking conditions began to spread, consumer confidence continued to drop and panic began to set in. Contagion spread like wildfire pushing Americans all over the country to withdraw their deposits en masse . This idea would continue from 1929 to 1933 causing the greatest financial crisis ever seen at
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#17327832096673740-525: A sense of humor but sometimes housewife rage exploded. In Chicago, angry Polish housewives doused thousands of pounds of meat with kerosene and set it on fire at the warehouses of the Armour Company to dramatize their belief that high prices were not the result of shortages. Formal organizations were formed by housewives as well, based on the power of these earlier community-based demonstrations: United Council of Working Class Women, Women's Committee of
3910-555: A separate mine in the Altai Mountains that, according to Hoover, "developed probably the greatest and richest single body of ore known in the world". In his spare time, Hoover wrote. His lectures at Columbia and Stanford universities were published in 1909 as Principles of Mining , which became a standard textbook. The book reflects his move towards progressive ideals, as Hoover came to endorse eight-hour workdays and organized labor . Hoover became deeply interested in
4080-424: A single day, more than $ 30 billion in the week. The value that evaporated that week was ten times more than the entire federal budget and more than all of what the U.S. had spent on World War I . By 1930 the value of shares had fallen by 90%. Since many banks had also invested their clients' savings in the stock market, these banks were forced to close when the stock market crashed. After the stock market crash and
4250-653: A successful engineer and public official. Averse to giving political speeches, Hoover largely stayed out of the fray and left the campaigning to Curtis and other Republicans. Smith was more charismatic and gregarious than Hoover, but his campaign was damaged by anti-Catholicism and his overt opposition to Prohibition. Hoover had never been a strong proponent of Prohibition, but he accepted the Republican Party's plank in favor of it and issued an ambivalent statement calling Prohibition "a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose". In
4420-777: A unique, gigantic achievement, worthy of the greatest glory, which will long remain in the memory of millions of Russians whom you have saved from death". In 1919, Hoover established the Hoover War Collection at Stanford University. He donated all the files of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the U.S. Food Administration, and the American Relief Administration, and pledged $ 50,000 as an endowment (equivalent to $ 878,695 in 2023). Scholars were sent to Europe to collect pamphlets, society publications, government documents, newspapers, posters, proclamations, and other ephemeral materials related to
4590-725: A way for the hungry to access free food. However, these kitchens were also overcrowded and often ran out of food before everyone could be served, so they were not always a reliable source of food. Homeless individuals that did not stay in shelters sometimes stayed in shantytowns, or "Hoovervilles" (named after Herbert Hoover, the president in office when the Depression began). These "Hoovervilles" were self-made communities of homeless people that followed their own rules and established their own society. Men, women, and even some children lived in these shantytowns and people from all different types of socio-economic backgrounds lived together, which
4760-527: A whole experienced a massive reduction in banking footholds across the country amounting to more than nine thousand closed banks by 1933. The closures resulted in a massive withdrawal of deposits by millions of Americans estimated at near $ 6.8 billion ($ 136 billion in 2023 dollars). During this time the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) was not in place resulting in a loss of roughly $ 1.36 billion (or 20%) of
4930-413: Is by Michael Darby in 1976. He put the unemployment rate at a peak of 22.5 percent in 1932. Job losses were less severe among women, workers in non durable industries (such as food and clothing), services and sales workers, and those employed by the government. Unskilled inner city men had much higher unemployment rates. Age also played a factor. Young people had a hard time getting their first job. Men over
5100-511: Is evident that the banking system suffered massive reductions across the country due to the lack of consumer confidence. As withdraw requests would exceed cash availability banks began conducting steed discount sales such as fire sales and short sales. Due to the inability to immediately determine current value worth these fire sales and short sales would result in massive losses when recuperating any possible revenue for outstanding and defaulted loans. This would allow healthy banks to take advantage of
5270-514: Is noted by many to have been the biggest player in reforming healthcare for Black folks during the Depression. The efforts of these "Militant Housewives" had lasting effects on the United States, predominantly the expansion of welfare and the growth of diverse feminist movements, as well as the strengthening of unionization movements in the US. Black women's involvement in Communist organizing produced
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5440-669: Is often cited as the beginning of the Great Depression. It began on October 24, 1929, and kept going down until March 1933. It was the longest and most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. Much of the stock market crash can be attributed to exuberance and false expectations. In the years leading up to 1929, the rising stock market prices had created vast sums of wealth in relation to amounts invested, in turn encouraging borrowing to buy more stock. However, on October 24 (Black Thursday), share prices began to fall and panic selling caused prices to fall sharply. On October 29 (Black Tuesday), share prices fell by $ 14 billion in
5610-449: Is precisely because of the shaky banking system, the United States was using monetary policy to save the economy that had been severely constrained. The American economist Charles P. Kindleberger of long-term studying of the Great Depression pointed out that in the 1929, before and after the collapse of the stock market, the Fed lowered interest rates, tried to expand the money supply and eased
5780-462: The 1932 presidential election . Hoover's retirement was over 31 years long, one of the longest presidential retirements. He authored numerous works and became increasingly conservative in retirement. He strongly criticized Roosevelt's foreign policy and the New Deal . In the 1940s and 1950s, public opinion of Hoover improved, largely due to his service in various assignments for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower , including chairing
5950-530: The 1938 United States elections the Republicans made an unexpected comeback, and Roosevelt's efforts to purge the Democratic Party of his political opponents backfired badly. The conservative coalition of Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats took control of Congress, outvoted the urban liberals, and halted the expansion of New Deal ideas. Roosevelt survived in 1940 thanks to his margin in
6120-532: The Democratic National Committee , to refer sardonically to President Herbert Hoover whose policies Michelson blamed for the depression. The government did not calculate unemployment rates in the 1930s. The most widely accepted estimates of unemployment rates for the Great Depression are those by Stanley Lebergott from the 1950s. He estimated that unemployment reached 24.9 percent in the worst days of 1933. Another commonly cited estimate
6290-595: The Depression of 1920–21 , he convinced Harding to assemble a presidential commission on unemployment, which encouraged local governments to engage in countercyclical infrastructure spending. He endorsed much of Mellon's tax reduction program but favored a more progressive tax system and opposed the treasury secretary's efforts to eliminate the estate tax . Between 1923 and 1929, the number of families with radios grew from 300,000 to 10 million, and Hoover's tenure as Secretary of Commerce heavily influenced radio use in
6460-545: The Gold Standard as the country's currency gauge throughout the following years. As a result, the American shareholders with the majority of the gold reserves began to grow wary of the value of gold in the near future. Europe 's decision to move away from the Gold Standard caused individuals to start to withdraw gold shares and move the investments out of the country or began to hoard gold for future investment. The market continued to suffer due to these reactions, and as
6630-480: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 . He won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election and defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith in a landslide. In 1929, Hoover assumed the presidency. However, during his first year in office, the stock market crashed , signaling the onset of the Great Depression, which dominated Hoover's presidency until its end. His response to the depression
6800-871: The Great Plains (the Okies ) and the South to places such as California and the cities of the North (the Great Migration ). Racial tensions also increased during this time. The memory of the Depression also shaped modern theories of government and economics and resulted in many changes in how the government dealt with economic downturns, such as the use of stimulus packages , Keynesian economics , and Social Security . It also shaped modern American literature, resulting in famous novels such as John Steinbeck 's The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men . Examining
6970-720: The North Sea forty times to meet with German authorities and persuade them to allow food shipments. He also convinced British Chancellor of the Exchequer David Lloyd George to allow individuals to send money to the people of Belgium, thereby lessening workload of the CRB. At the request of the French government, the CRB began delivering supplies to the people of German-occupied Northern France in 1915. American diplomat Walter Page described Hoover as "probably
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7140-612: The Paris Peace Conference , Hoover served as a close adviser to President Wilson, and he largely shared Wilson's goals of establishing the League of Nations , settling borders on the basis of self-determination , and refraining from inflicting a harsh punishment on the defeated Central Powers. The following year, the famed British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in The Economic Consequences of
7310-632: The United States Geological Survey ; these experiences convinced Hoover to pursue a career as a mining geologist. When Hoover graduated from Stanford in 1895, the country was in the midst of the Panic of 1893 and he initially struggled to find a job. He worked in various low-level mining jobs in the Sierra Nevada Mountains until persuading prominent mining engineer Louis Janin to hire him. After working as
7480-519: The causes of the Great Depression raises multiple issues: what factors set off the first downturn in 1929; what structural weaknesses and specific events turned it into a major depression; how the downturn spread from country to country; and why the economic recovery was so prolonged. Many rural banks began to fail in October 1930 when farmers defaulted on loans. There was no federal deposit insurance during that time as bank failures were considered
7650-451: The freedom of the press . It has criticized decisions to shut down news sites. When U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions vowed to review "media subpoenas" as an attempt to quell leaks in government, the club criticized the remarks as "a not-so-veiled shot across the bow at the news media" and suggested that journalists must not be intimidated by such threats. When CNN journalist Jim Acosta was singled out by then president-elect Donald Trump during
7820-611: The froth flotation process to extract zinc from lead-silver ore and operated the world's first selective ore differential flotation plant. Hoover worked with the Burma Corporation, a British firm that produced silver, lead, and zinc in large quantities at the Namtu Bawdwin Mine . He also helped increase copper production in Kyshtym , Russia , through the use of pyritic smelting. He also agreed to manage
7990-421: The gold standard prevented it from engaging in expansionary monetary policy . High interest rates needed to be maintained in order to attract international investors who bought foreign assets with gold. However, the high interest also inhibited domestic business borrowing. The U.S. interest rates were also affected by France 's decision to raise their interest rates to attract gold to their vaults. In theory,
8160-506: The history of science , and he was especially drawn to the De re metallica , an influential 16th century work on mining and metallurgy by Georgius Agricola . In 1912, Hoover and his wife published the first English translation of De re metallica . Hoover also joined the board of trustees at Stanford, and led a successful campaign to appoint John Branner as the university's president. During his senior year at Stanford, Hoover became smitten with
8330-404: The labour movement of the Australian miners. During his time with the mining company, Hoover became opposed to measures such as a minimum wage and workers' compensation , feeling that they were unfair to owners. Hoover's work impressed his employers, and in 1898 he was promoted to junior partner. An open feud developed between Hoover and his boss, Ernest Williams, but Bewick's leaders defused
8500-416: The 114 largest cities, 1929–1937. They estimated that every additional $ 153,000 in relief spending (in 1935 dollars, or $ 1.95 million in year 2000 dollars) was associated with a reduction of one infant death, one suicide, and 2.4 deaths from infectious disease. The Great Depression's political landscape proved conducive to the first large-scale movement of class-conscious working-class women organizers since
8670-413: The 1928 Republican nomination, and he quickly put together a strong campaign team led by Hubert Work , Will H. Hays , and Reed Smoot . Coolidge was unwilling to anoint Hoover as his successor; on one occasion he remarked that, "for six years that man has given me unsolicited advice—all of it bad". Despite his lukewarm feelings towards Hoover, Coolidge had no desire to split the party by publicly opposing
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#17327832096678840-740: The Allied Powers, preventing their collapse and earning Hoover great acclaim. As head of the Food Administration, Hoover gained a following in the United States, especially among progressives who saw in Hoover an expert administrator and symbol of efficiency. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society during his tenure. World War I came to an end in November 1918, but Europe continued to face
9010-610: The Bolsheviks and feared the possibility of a protracted U.S. involvement. The Russian famine of 1921–22 claimed six million people, but the intervention of the ARA likely saved millions of lives. When asked if he was not helping Bolshevism by providing relief, Hoover stated, "twenty million people are starving. Whatever their politics, they shall be fed!" Reflecting the gratitude of many Europeans, in July 1922, Soviet author Maxim Gorky told Hoover that "your help will enter history as
9180-706: The British refused to lift their blockade of German-occupied Belgium unless the U.S. government supervised Belgian food imports as a neutral party in the war. With the cooperation of the Wilson administration and the CNSA , a Belgian relief organization, Hoover established the Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB). The CRB obtained and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs for the CNSA to distribute, and helped ensure that
9350-620: The Chinese government, the director of the Chinese Engineering and Mining Company agreed to establish a new Sino-British venture with Bewick. After they established effective control over the new Chinese mining company, Hoover became the operating partner in late 1901. In this role, Hoover continually traveled the world on behalf of Bewick, visiting mines operated by the company on different continents. Beginning in December 1902,
9520-546: The Democrats or the Republicans . He initially sought to avoid committing to any party in the 1920 election, hoping that either of the two major parties would draft him for president at their national conventions. In March 1920, he changed strategy and declared himself a Republican; he was motivated in large part by the belief that the Democrats had little chance of winning. Despite his national renown, Hoover's service in
9690-506: The German army did not appropriate the food. Private donations and government grants supplied the majority of its $ 11-million-a-month budget, and the CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. Hoover worked 14-hour days from London, administering the distribution of over two million tons of food to nine million war victims. In an early form of shuttle diplomacy , he crossed
9860-551: The Germans did control nearly all of Belgium for the entire war. Hoover and other London-based American businessmen established a committee to organize the return of the roughly 100,000 Americans stranded in Europe. Hoover was appointed as the committee's chairman and, with the assent of Congress and the Wilson administration , took charge of the distribution of relief to Americans in Europe. Hoover later stated, "I did not realize it at
10030-496: The Great Depression due to the lack of confidence in the regulatory and recovery displayed during the 1920s, this ultimately drove a nation of doubts, uneasiness, and lack of consumer confidence in the banking system. With a lack of consumer confidence in the economic direction given by the federal government panic started to spread across the country shortly after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 . President Hoover retained
10200-511: The Harding administration. Hoover envisioned the Commerce Department as the hub of the nation's growth and stability. His experience mobilizing the war-time economy convinced him that the federal government could promote efficiency by eliminating waste, increasing production, encouraging the adoption of data-based practices, investing in infrastructure, and conserving natural resources. Contemporaries described Hoover's approach as
10370-584: The Home Modernizing Bureau. He worked with bankers and the savings and loan industry to promote the new long-term home mortgage, which dramatically stimulated home construction. Other accomplishments included winning the agreement of U.S. Steel to adopt an eight-hour workday, and the fostering of the Colorado River Compact , a water rights compact among Southwestern states . The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 broke
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#173278320966710540-540: The Hoovers began living in the United States, maintaining homes in Stanford, California , and Washington, D.C. Hoover's great-grandaughter (through Allan) is conservative political commentator, strategist, media personality and author Margaret Hoover . Hoover's elder brother Theodore also studied mining engineering at Stanford, and returned there to become dean of the engineering school. In retirement, Theodore bought
10710-460: The New Deal through the Hoover and Roosevelt administration. One visible effect of the depression was the advent of Hoovervilles , which were ramshackle assemblages on vacant lots of cardboard boxes, tents, and small rickety wooden sheds built by homeless people. Residents lived in the shacks and begged for food or went to soup kitchens. The term was coined by Charles Michelson, publicity chief of
10880-403: The North were limited, they were nonexistent in the South. Many homeless African Americans relied on aid from their own communities. Churches and Black-run organizations often provided their own soup kitchens and shelters to make up for aid the government wasn't providing its African American citizens. Both birth control and abortion were illegal prior to and during the Great Depression. With
11050-660: The Peace that if Hoover's realism, "knowledge, magnanimity and disinterestedness" had found wider play in the councils of Paris, the world would have had "the Good Peace". After U.S. government funding for the ARA expired in mid-1919, Hoover transformed the ARA into a private organization, raising millions of dollars from private donors. He also established the European Children's Fund, which provided relief to fifteen million children across fourteen countries. Despite
11220-473: The Republican nomination in the 1920 U.S. presidential election . Hoover served as the secretary of commerce under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge . Hoover was an unusually active and visible Cabinet member, becoming known as "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments." He was influential in the development of air travel and radio. Hoover led the federal response to
11390-418: The Senate and from radio station owners. Hoover was also influential in the early development of air travel, and he sought to create a thriving private industry boosted by indirect government subsidies. He encouraged the development of emergency landing fields, required all runways to be equipped with lights and radio beams, and encouraged farmers to make use of planes for crop dusting . He also established
11560-421: The Senate. Hoover would serve as Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928, serving under Harding and, after Harding's death in 1923, President Calvin Coolidge . While some of the most prominent members of the Harding administration, including Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and Secretary of Interior Albert B. Fall , were implicated in major scandals , Hoover emerged largely unscathed from investigations into
11730-414: The Solid South and in the cities. In the North the cities over 100,000 gave Roosevelt 60% of their votes, while the rest of the North favored Willkie 52–48%. With the start of full-scale war mobilization in the summer of 1940, the economies of the cities rebounded. Even before Pearl Harbor, Washington pumped massive investments into new factories and funded round-the-clock munitions production, guaranteeing
11900-426: The South, Hoover and the national party pursued a " lily-white " strategy, removing black Republicans from leadership positions in an attempt to curry favor with white Southerners. Hoover maintained polling leads throughout the 1928 campaign, and he decisively defeated Smith on election day, taking 58 percent of the popular vote and 444 of the 531 electoral votes. Historians agree that Hoover's national reputation and
12070-517: The U.S. and some others the negative economic impact often lasted until the beginning of World War II, when war industries stimulated recovery. There is little agreement on what caused the Great Depression, and the topic has become highly politicized. At the time the great majority of economists around the world recommended the "orthodox" solution of cutting government spending and raising taxes. However, British economist John Maynard Keynes advocated large-scale government deficit spending to make up for
12240-469: The U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration. He became famous as his country's "food czar". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration , which provided food to the starving millions in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Hoover's wartime service made him a favorite of many progressives , and he unsuccessfully sought
12410-466: The U.S. government. Due to the downturned economy, jobs were scarce and Black men were a huge target of the lay-offs, making up a large population of the unemployed during the Depression. Black folks were also still unable to vote at this time in the Jim Crow south, meaning Black families were facing immense compounding pressures. These conditions set the precedent for Black women to take action and demand
12580-440: The U.S. would have two potential responses to that: allow the exchange rate to adjust, or increase their own interest rates to maintain the gold standard. At the time, the U.S. was pegged to the gold standard. Therefore, Americans converted their dollars into francs to buy more French assets, the demand for the U.S. dollar fell, and the exchange rate increased. One of the only things the U.S. could do to get back into equilibrium
12750-579: The United States In the United States , the Great Depression began with the Wall Street Crash of October 1929 and then spread worldwide. The nadir came in 1931–1933, and recovery came in 1940. The stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment , famine, poverty, low profits, deflation , plunging farm incomes, and lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement. Altogether, there
12920-594: The United States for their wedding. They would remain married until Lou Henry Hoover's death in 1944. Hoover was the first president to be a widower since Woodrow Wilson . Though his Quaker upbringing strongly influenced his career, Hoover rarely attended Quaker meetings during his adult life. Hoover and his wife had two children: Herbert Hoover Jr. (born in 1903) and Allan Henry Hoover (born in 1907). The Hoover family began living in London in 1902, though they frequently traveled as part of Hoover's career. After 1916,
13090-405: The United States have a long history of activism regarding housing and the cost of food despite the common and longstanding misconception that homemakers are passive and apolitical. The rising prices in the U.S. meant a new issue for consumers: the concept of being an "ethical consumer" and reckoning with their own consumer behavior in the ever-changing markets. As the government acted minimally at
13260-500: The United States. In the early and mid-1920s, Hoover's radio conferences played a key role in the organization, development, and regulation of radio broadcasting . Hoover also helped pass the Radio Act of 1927 , which allowed the government to intervene and abolish radio stations that were deemed "non-useful" to the public. Hoover's attempts at regulating radio were not supported by all congressmen, and he received much opposition from
13430-618: The Washington Commonwealth Federation, Women's Committee against the High Cost of Living, Housewives Industrial League, and the Housewives' League of Detroit to name a few. New ways of activism came out of these boycotts and a renewed awareness of where folks were putting their money came with concerns from American consumers. One unique demonstration by the League of Women Shoppers and Lee Simonson
13600-581: The Wilson administration had alienated farmers and the conservative Old Guard of the GOP , and his presidential candidacy fizzled out after his defeat in the California primary by favorite son Hiram Johnson . At the 1920 Republican National Convention , Warren G. Harding emerged as a compromise candidate after the convention became deadlocked between supporters of Johnson, Leonard Wood , and Frank Orren Lowden . Hoover backed Harding's successful campaign in
13770-404: The age of 34 of a sudden heart attack. Hoover's mother died in 1884 of typhoid , leaving Hoover, his older brother, Theodore, and his younger sister, May, as orphans. Hoover lived the next 18 months with his uncle Allen Hoover at a nearby farm. In November 1885, Hoover was sent to Newberg, Oregon , to live with his uncle John Minthorn, a Quaker physician and businessman whose own son had died
13940-426: The age of 45, if they lost their job, would rarely find another one because employers had their choice of younger men. Millions were hired in the Great Depression, but men with weaker credentials were not, and they fell into a long-term unemployment trap. The migration in the 1920s that brought millions of farmers and townspeople to the bigger cities suddenly reversed itself. Unemployment made the cities unattractive, and
14110-577: The age of thirteen to become an office assistant for his uncle's real estate office (Oregon Land Company) in Salem, Oregon . Though he did not attend high school, Hoover learned bookkeeping, typing, and mathematics at a night school. Hoover was a member of the inaugural "Pioneer Class" of Stanford University , entering in 1891 despite failing all the entrance exams except mathematics. During his freshman year, he switched his major from mechanical engineering to geology after working for John Casper Branner ,
14280-505: The agency leadership— Alonzo E. Taylor (technical abilities), Robert Taft (political associations), Gifford Pinchot (agricultural influence), and Julius Barnes (business acumen). World War I had created a global food crisis that dramatically increased food prices and caused food riots and starvation in the countries at war. Hoover's chief goal as food czar was to provide supplies to the Allied Powers, but he also sought to stabilize domestic prices and to prevent domestic shortages. Under
14450-404: The aid that was offered there. While other shelters accepted African Americans, the fear of racial violence and discrimination from the municipal organizers or other residents was still a threat that lingered over their heads. Many homeless shelters were also located in inconvenient neighborhoods for African Americans, so they were unable to access them. If municipal shelters for African Americans in
14620-600: The amount of crude oil spilled during extraction and shipping. He promoted international trade by opening overseas offices to advise businessmen. Hoover was especially eager to promote Hollywood films overseas. His "Own Your Own Home" campaign was a collaboration to promote ownership of single-family dwellings, with groups such as the Better Houses in America movement, the Architects' Small House Service Bureau, and
14790-438: The bank closures, people were afraid of losing more money. Because of their fears of further economic challenge, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing and consuming. Thousands of individual investors who believed they could get rich by investing on margin lost everything they had. The stock market crash severely impacted the American economy. A large contribution was the closure and suspension of thousands of banks across
14960-432: The banking crisis as state bank and trust companies were not compelled to be a member, paper eligible discount member banks heavily restricted access to the Federal Reserve, power between the twelve Federal Reserve banks was decentralized and federal level leadership was ineffective, inexperienced, and weak. Throughout the early 1900s banking regulations were extremely lax if not non-existent. The Currency Act of 1900 lowered
15130-401: The banking level pushing the economic recovery efforts further from resolution. An increase in the currency-deposit ratio and a money stock determinant forced money stock to fall and income to decline. This panic-induced banking failure took a mild recession to a major recession. Whether this caused the Great Depression is still heavily debated due to many other attributing factors. However, it
15300-543: The banks and levees of the lower Mississippi River in early 1927, resulting in the flooding of millions of acres and leaving 1.5 million people displaced from their homes. Although disaster response did not fall under the duties of the Commerce Department , the governors of six states along the Mississippi River specifically asked President Coolidge to appoint Hoover to coordinate the response to
15470-490: The banks to resort to short or liquidate existing loans. In the race to liquidate assets the banking system began to fail on a wide scale. In November 1930 the first major banking crisis began with over 800 banks closing their doors by January 1931. By October 1931 over 2100 banks were suspended with the highest suspension rate recorded in the St. Louis Federal Reserve District, with 2 out of every 5 banks suspended. The economy as
15640-399: The booming economy, combined with deep splits in the Democratic Party over religion and Prohibition, guaranteed his landslide victory. Hoover's appeal to Southern white voters succeeded in cracking the " Solid South ", and he won five Southern states. Hoover's victory was positively received by newspapers; one wrote that Hoover would "drive so forcefully at the tasks now before the nation that
15810-714: The broad powers granted by the Food and Fuel Control Act , the Food Administration supervised food production throughout the United States, and the administration made use of its authority to buy, import, store, and sell food. Determined to avoid rationing, Hoover established set days for people to avoid eating specified foods and save them for soldiers' rations: meatless Mondays , wheatless Wednesdays, and "when in doubt, eat potatoes". These policies were dubbed "Hooverizing" by government publicists, in spite of Hoover's continual orders that publicity should not mention him by name. The Food Administration shipped 23 million metric tons of food to
15980-427: The chairman of Stanford's geology department. During his sophomore year, Sam Collins proposed founding, Romero Hall Boarding Club , the first student cooperative boarding house at Romero Hall, for "sociability and economy", which Hoover and William Foster Hidden co-founded. Hoover was a mediocre student, and he spent much of his time working in various part-time jobs or participating in campus activities. Though he
16150-414: The cheapest possible relief, including soup kitchens providing free meals to anyone who showed up. After 1933, new sales taxes and infusions of federal money helped relieve the fiscal distress of the cities, but the budgets did not fully recover until 1941. The federal programs launched by Hoover and greatly expanded by President Roosevelt's New Deal used massive construction projects to try to jump-start
16320-557: The cities, turned out 80% for FDR, as did Irish, Italian and Jewish communities. In all, the nation's 106 cities over 100,000 population voted 70% for FDR in 1936, compared to his 59% elsewhere. Roosevelt worked very well with the big city machines, with the one exception of his old nemesis, Tammany Hall in Manhattan. There he supported the complicated coalition built around the nominal Republican Fiorello La Guardia , and based on Jewish and Italian voters mobilized by labor unions. In
16490-437: The club focuses on furthering the interests of journalists and media people. It sponsors lectures and presentations relevant to journalism such as press freedom, investigative reporting, the relationship between the media and the government, the role of community newspapers, changes in media, topics in the news, foreign press coverage of New York, and questions about how the press covers itself. For example, it spurred discussion on
16660-563: The company faced mounting legal and financial issues after one of the partners admitted to having fraudulently sold stock in a mine. More issues arose in 1904 after the British government formed two separate royal commissions to investigate Bewick's labor practices and financial dealings in Western Australia. After the company lost a lawsuit Hoover began looking for a way to get out of the partnership, and he sold his shares in mid-1908. After leaving Bewick, Moreing, Hoover worked as
16830-412: The conferences grew and soon embraced motor vehicle standards, rules of the road, and urban traffic control. He left the invited interest groups to negotiate agreements among themselves, which were then presented for adoption by states and localities. Because automotive trade associations were the best organized, many of the positions taken by the conferences reflected their interests. The conferences issued
17000-441: The cost in the future. Maternal mortality rates rose during the depression, resulting from infections or hemorrhages of self-performed abortions, or methods that women used to try and control their reproduction. The New York Academy of Medicine conducted a study and found that 12.8% of maternal deaths were due to septic abortion. With lower-class women attempting to self-abort due to their new poverty, preventing them from visiting
17170-524: The country mobilized in this ongoing time of hardship. Historian Annelise Orleck recounts the following demonstrations from a variety of communities: In New York City, organized bands of Jewish housewives fiercely resisted eviction, arguing that they were merely doing their jobs by defending their homes and those of their neighbors. Barricading themselves in apartments, they made speeches from tenement windows, wielded kettles of boiling water, and threatened to scald anyone who attempted to move furniture out on to
17340-530: The country's founding. Housewives, mothers, and working-class women regardless of employment status were driven by rising market prices to become political players within their communities. Black women and immigrant women were essential to these movements, mobilizing their communities to advocate for better conditions. This activism included food boycotts, anti-eviction rallies, the establishment of barter networks, calls for price regulations for food and housing, and gardening co-ops to battle food insecurity. Women in
17510-780: The country, in hopes of finding a way of sending money to their families back home. These men became known as "transients", which was the most common way to refer to these unemployed, homeless individuals. Large urban areas, such as Los Angeles , San Francisco , Chicago , and New York City , became flooded with transients searching for work, causing major train stations to be overcrowded with illegal passengers. Homeless individuals who were not transient often stayed in municipal shelters, which were government-run homeless shelters that provided housing and food. Because these shelters were often placed in large urban areas, they were often overcrowded with poor-quality food and state of living. Soup kitchens also became popular during this time as they were
17680-410: The country. Financial institutions failed for several reasons, including unregulated lending procedures, confidence in the gold standard , consumer confidence in future economics, and agricultural defaults on outstanding loans. With these compounding issues the banking system struggled to keep up with the public's increasing demand for cash withdrawals. This overall decreased the money supply and forced
17850-519: The current economic and population standards. Banking profitability and loan standards begin to deteriorate as early as 1900 as a result. Crop failures beginning in 1921 began to impact this poorly regulated system, the expansion areas of corn and cotton suffered the largest due to the Dust Bowl era resulting in real estate value reductions. In addition, the year 1921 was the peak for banking expansion with roughly 31,000 banks in activity, however, with
18020-497: The decision, arguing for greater transparency. It sponsors an annual Conference on Journalism which is held at New York University, and it used to publish Byline Magazine which features topics of interest to journalists. When prominent newspeople die, the organization issues statements about their contributions; for example, when news reporter Gabe Pressman died in 2017, the club issued a statement that Pressman "fought ferociously for journalists' rights". The organization promotes
18190-543: The depression, President Herbert Hoover , widely blamed for not doing enough to combat the crisis, lost the election of 1932 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt by a landslide. Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the New Deal , instituted unprecedented programs for relief, recovery and reform, and brought about a major realignment of politics with liberalism dominant and conservatism in retreat until 1938. There were mass migrations of people from badly hit areas in
18360-502: The dichotomy of the positions they assumed in society under early feminism: The home may be the woman's place, but the "home" was no longer just the family's isolated home and property. Black women served a particularly radical role through the furthering of working-class women's movements. The Great Depression had particularly strong effects on the Black community in the 1920s and 30s, forcing Black women to reckon with their relationship to
18530-531: The economic downturn, more families turned toward birth control and abortion to help control family sizing, due to not being able to afford children. In 1936, thousands of women in New Jersey had an abortion "insurance" with more being card-carrying members to a "Birth Control Club", which allowed them access to regular exams and abortions for a fee. This shows that compared to the past, women were now expecting to have abortions, and looking for ways to help lower
18700-418: The economy and solve the unemployment crisis. The alphabet agencies CCC , FERA , WPA and PWA built and repaired the public infrastructure in dramatic fashion, but did little to foster the recovery of the private sector. FERA, CCC and especially WPA focused on providing unskilled jobs for long-term unemployed men. The Democrats won easy landslide victories in 1932 and 1934, and an even bigger one in 1936;
18870-701: The edge of the Great Victoria Desert as a land of "black flies, red dust and white heat". Hoover traveled constantly across the Outback to evaluate and manage the company's mines. He convinced Bewick to purchase the Sons of Gwalia gold mine, which proved to be one of the most successful mines in the region. Partly due to Hoover's efforts, the company eventually controlled approximately 50 percent of gold production in Western Australia . Hoover brought in many Italian immigrants to cut costs and counter
19040-425: The end of his eight years as president will find us looking back on an era of prodigious achievement". Hoover's detractors wondered why he did not do anything to reapportion congress after the 1920 United States census which saw an increase in urban and immigrant populations. The 1920 census was the first and only decennial census where the results were not used to reapportion Congress, which ultimately influenced
19210-462: The failure of private investment. No major nation adopted his policies in the 1930s. The stock market crash in 1929 not only affected the business community and the public's economic confidence, but it also led to the banking system soon after the turmoil. The boom of the US economy in the 1920s was based on high indebtedness, and the rupture of the debt chain caused by the collapse of the bank had produced widespread and far-reaching adverse effects. It
19380-426: The failures at the agricultural level 505 banks would close between 1921 and 1930 marking the largest banking system failure on record. Regulatory questions began to hit the debating table around banking qualifications as a result; discussions would continue into the Great Depression as not only were banks failing but some would disappear altogether with no rhyme or reason. The panic of financial crisis would increase in
19550-470: The federal government's power to inspect planes and license pilots, setting a precedent for the later Federal Aviation Administration . As Commerce Secretary, Hoover hosted national conferences on street traffic collectively known as the National Conference on Street and Highway Safety. Hoover's chief objective was to address the growing casualty toll of traffic accidents , but the scope of
19720-406: The financial market tensions for several times; however, they were not successful. The fundamental reason was that the relationship between various credit institutions and the community was in a drastic adjustment process, the normal supply channels for money supply were blocked. Later, some economists argued that the Fed should do a large-scale opening market business at that time, but the essence of
19890-458: The first two decades of the 1900s. The unregulated growth of small rural banking institutions can be partially attributed to the rising cost of agriculture especially in the Corn Belt and Cotton Belt . Throughout the corn and cotton belts real estate increases drove the demand for more local funding to continue to supply rising agricultural economics. The rural banking structures would supply
20060-434: The flood crisis, by 1928, Hoover had begun to overshadow President Coolidge himself. Though Hoover received wide acclaim for his role in the crisis, he ordered the suppression of reports of mistreatment of African Americans in refugee camps . He did so with the cooperation of black American leader Robert Russa Moton , who was promised unprecedented influence once Hoover became president. Hoover quietly gathered support for
20230-463: The flood. Believing that disaster response was not the domain of the federal government, Coolidge initially refused to become involved, but he eventually acceded to political pressure and appointed Hoover to chair a special committee to help the region. Hoover established over one hundred tent cities and a fleet of more than six hundred vessels and raised $ 17 million (equivalent to $ 298.18 million in 2023). In large part due to his leadership during
20400-521: The general election, and he began laying the groundwork for a future presidential run by building a base of strong supporters in the Republican Party. After his election as president in 1920, Harding rewarded Hoover for his support, offering to appoint him as either Secretary of the Interior or Secretary of Commerce . Secretary of Commerce was considered a minor Cabinet post, with limited and vaguely defined responsibilities, but Hoover decided to accept
20570-598: The government expand welfare. In collaboration with their white counterparts, Black women would help to form the National Welfare Rights Organization . "Don't Buy Where You Can't Work" boycotts broke out in Black communities, using the role of the homemaking consumer to leverage jobs for Black adults. Black housewives lead marches calling for the government to regulate prices on food while nurses from Black communities set up reproductive health and pre/post natal clinics. Midwife Maude E. Callen
20740-434: The government. He created many sub-departments and committees, overseeing and regulating everything from manufacturing statistics to air travel . In some instances, he "seized" control of responsibilities from other Cabinet departments when he deemed that they were not carrying out their responsibilities well; some began referring to him as the "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments". In response to
20910-461: The hapless Republican Party seemed doomed. The Democrats capitalized on the magnetic appeal of Roosevelt to urban America. The key groups were low-skilled and Catholics, Jews, and Blacks were especially impacted. The Democrats promised and delivered in terms of political recognition, labor union membership, and relief jobs. The cities' political machines were stronger than ever, for they mobilized their precinct workers to help families who needed help
21080-508: The influential Hoover Commission . Critical assessments of his presidency by historians and political scientists generally rank him as a significantly below-average president, although Hoover has received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official. Herbert Clark Hoover was born on August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa . His father, Jesse Hoover, was a blacksmith and farm implement store owner of German, Swiss, and English ancestry. Hoover's mother, Hulda Randall Minthorn,
21250-420: The lending process. Over banked conditions existed which pressured struggling banks to increase their services (specifically to the agricultural customers) without any additional regulatory oversight or qualifications. This dilemma introduced several high-risk and marginal business returns to the banking market. Banking growth would continue through the first two decades well outside of previous trends disregarding
21420-509: The lot of the Chinese worker, seeking to end the practice of imposing long-term servitude contracts and to institute reforms for workers based on merit. The Boxer Rebellion broke out shortly after the Hoovers arrived in China, trapping them and numerous other foreign nationals until a multi-national military force defeated Boxer forces in the Battle of Tientsin . Fearing the imminent collapse of
21590-427: The moment, but on August 3, 1914, my career was over forever. I was on the slippery road of public life." By early October 1914, Hoover's organization had distributed relief to at least 40,000 Americans. The German invasion of Belgium in August 1914 set off a food crisis in Belgium, which relied heavily on food imports. The Germans refused to take responsibility for feeding Belgian citizens in captured territory, and
21760-439: The most included construction, shipping, mining, logging, and agriculture. Also hard hit was the manufacturing of durable goods like automobiles and appliances, whose purchase consumers could postpone. The economy hit bottom in the winter of 1932–1933; then came four years of growth until the recession of 1937–1938 brought back high levels of unemployment. The Depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into
21930-502: The most navigate the bureaucracy and get on relief. FDR won the vote of practically every demographic in 1936, including taxpayers, small business and the middle class. However, the Protestant middle-class voters turned sharply against him after the recession of 1937–38 undermined repeated promises that recovery was at hand. Historically, local political machines were primarily interested in controlling their wards and citywide elections;
22100-472: The mud" when he repeatedly got trapped in the mud crossing the unpaved street. Herbert's family figured prominently in the town's public prayer life, due almost entirely to mother Hulda's role in the church. As a child, Hoover consistently attended schools, but he did little reading on his own aside from the Bible. Hoover's father, noted by the local paper for his "pleasant, sunshiny disposition", died in 1880 at
22270-455: The nation's food needs during the war. Hoover had hoped to join the administration in some capacity since at least 1916, and he obtained the position after lobbying several members of Congress and Wilson's confidant, Edward M. House . Earning the appellation of "food czar", Hoover recruited a volunteer force of hundreds of thousands of women and deployed propaganda in movie theaters, schools, and churches. He carefully selected men to assist in
22440-512: The needed capital to meet the farm commodity market , however, this came with a price of reliability and low risk lending. Economic growth was promising from 1887 to 1920 with an average of 6 percent growth in GDP. In particular, the participation in World War I drove a booming agricultural market that drove optimism at the consumer and lending level which, in turn, resulted in a more lax approach in
22610-429: The network of kinfolk and more ample food supplies made it wise for many to go back. City governments in 1930–31 tried to meet the depression by expanding public works projects , as President Herbert Hoover strongly encouraged. However, tax revenues were plunging, and the cities as well as private relief agencies were totally overwhelmed by 1931; no one was able to provide significant additional relief. People fell back on
22780-453: The only man living who has privately (i.e., without holding office) negotiated understandings with the British, French, German, Dutch, and Belgian governments". War upon Germany was declared in April 1917, and American food was essential to Allied victory. With the U.S. mobilizing for war, President Wilson appointed Hoover to head the U.S. Food Administration , which was charged with ensuring
22950-586: The opposition of Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and other Republicans, Hoover provided aid to the defeated German nation after the war, as well as relief to famine -stricken Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . Hoover condemned the Bolsheviks but warned President Wilson against an intervention in the Russian Civil War , as he viewed the White Russian forces as little better than
23120-399: The popular Commerce Secretary's candidacy. Many wary Republican leaders cast about for an alternative candidate, such as Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon or former secretary of state Charles Evans Hughes . However, Hughes and Mellon declined to run, and other potential contenders like Frank Orren Lowden and Vice President Charles G. Dawes failed to garner widespread support. Hoover won
23290-476: The position. Hoover's progressive stances, continuing support for the League of Nations , and recent conversion to the Republican Party aroused opposition to his appointment from many Senate Republicans . To overcome this opposition, Harding paired Hoover's nomination with that of conservative favorite Andrew Mellon as Secretary of the Treasury , and the nominations of both Hoover and Mellon were confirmed by
23460-429: The presidential election approaching, the political heat generated by the Great Depression and the failure of Hoover's policies grew only more withering. Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States , serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and
23630-418: The presidential nomination on the first ballot of the 1928 Republican National Convention . Convention delegates considered re-nominating Vice President Charles Dawes to be Hoover's running mate , but Coolidge, who hated Dawes, remarked that this would be "a personal affront" to him. The convention instead selected Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas. Hoover accepted the nomination at Stanford Stadium , telling
23800-510: The rates were made much more progressive. Hoover changed his approach to fighting the Depression. He justified his call for more federal assistance by noting that "We used such emergency powers to win the war; we can use them to fight the Depression, the misery, and suffering from which are equally great." This new approach embraced a number of initiatives. Unfortunately for the President, none proved especially effective. Just as important, with
23970-435: The required capital of investors from 50,000 to 25,000 to create a national bank . As a result of this change nearly two thirds of the banks formed over the next ten years were quite small, averaging just above the 25,000 in required capital. The number of banks would nearly double (number of banks divided by Real GDP) from 1890 to 1920 due to the lack of oversight and qualification when banking charters were being issued in
24140-524: The show marched in protest of the boycott, opening a national conversation about the definition of ethical consumerism. This was one of America's first highly effective acts of fashion activism . As women either returned or began to enter the workforce, the deplorable conditions quickly became clear to them. The lack of sanitation practices, poor wages, and otherwise unsafe work environments were no longer issues that workers were willing to power through when so many other burdens were weighing on them outside of
24310-641: The situation by offering Hoover a compelling position in China . Upon arriving in China, Hoover developed gold mines near Tianjin on behalf of Bewick and the Chinese-owned Chinese Engineering and Mining Company . He became deeply interested in Chinese history , but gave up on learning the language to a fluent level . He publicly warned that Chinese workers were inefficient and racially inferior. He made recommendations to improve
24480-497: The smaller the turnout on election day, the easier it was to control the system. However, for Roosevelt to win the presidency in 1936 and 1940, he needed to carry the electoral college and that meant he needed the largest possible majorities in the cities to overwhelm rural voters. The machines came through for him. The 3.5 million voters on relief payrolls during the 1936 election cast 82% percent of their ballots for Roosevelt. The rapidly growing, energetic labor unions, chiefly based in
24650-610: The statement was that the US government should be quick to implement measures to expand fiscal spending and fiscal deficits. Between the 1920s and 1930s, The United States began to try the tight money policy to promote economic growth. In terms of the fiscal policy, the US government failed to reach a consensus on the fiscal issue. President Hoover began to expand federal spending, setting up the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to provide emergency assistance to banks and financial institutions that were on
24820-624: The street. Black mothers in Cleveland, unable to convince a local power company to delay shutting off electricity in the homes of families who had not paid their bills, won restoration of power after they hung wet laundry over every utility line in the neighborhood. They also left crying babies on the desks of caseworkers at the Cleveland Emergency Relief Association, refusing to retrieve them until free milk had been provided for each child. These actions reflected
24990-543: The struggling units forcing additional losses resulting in banks not being able to deliver on depositor demands and creating a failing cycle that would become widespread. Investment would continue to stay low through the next half-decade as the private sector would hoard savings due to uncertainty of the future. The federal government would run additional policy changes such as the Check tax, monetary restrictions (including reduction of money supply by burning), High Wage Policy, and
25160-472: The subject of concussions in American football . It sponsors debates among candidates for public office, provides support for journalists faced with media-related legal issues, and works with government agencies on issues such as issuing press credentials. For example, when New York mayor Bill De Blasio called for a closed-down session to exclude reporters, the Press Club's president Larry Seary criticized
25330-475: The supply. Their plan was to drastically cut back on output from British Malaya , which had the effect of tripling rubber prices. Hoover energetically gave a series of speeches and interviews denouncing the monopolistic practice and demanding that it be ended. The American State Department wanted no such crisis and compromised the issue in 1926. By then Hoover had solved his image problem, and during his 1928 campaign he successfully squelched attacks that alleged he
25500-563: The time to protect consumers from predatory market tactics, many women as workers, housewives, and mothers found activism a natural part of their role in the name of protecting their families. The boycotts done by housewives predominantly revolved around targeting unfair businesses in their communities that price-gauged their shops or refused to support their workers' livelihoods to an acceptable degree. Housewives in New York were particularly active at this time, but housewives and mothers across
25670-474: The total $ 6.8 billion accounted for within the failed banks. These losses came directly from everyday individuals' savings, investments and bank accounts. As a result, GDP fell from the high seven-hundreds in 1929 to the low to mid six-hundreds in 1933 before seeing any recovery for the first time in nearly 4 years. Federal leadership intervention is highly debated on its effectiveness and overall participation. The Federal Reserve Act could not effectively tackle
25840-420: The verge of bankruptcy. Hoover's fiscal policy had accelerated the recession. In December 1929, as means of showing government confidence in the economy, Hoover reduced all income tax rates by 1% in 1929 due to the continuing budget surplus. By 1930, the surplus had turned into a fast-growing deficit of economic contraction. In 1931, the US federal fiscal revenue and expenditure changed from the financial surplus to
26010-667: The war and the revolutions that followed it. The collection was renamed the Hoover War Library in 1922 and is now known as the Hoover Institution Library and Archives . During the post-war period, Hoover also served as the president of the Federated American Engineering Societies. Hoover had been little known among the American public before 1914, but his service in the Wilson administration established him as
26180-590: The workplace. The 1930s brought falling wages and high unemployment, which had workplaces implementing strong efforts to keep women and Black folks out of jobs to better employ the preferred white male population, as well as keeping the few female and/or Black workers out of unions. International Ladies Garment Workers Union , Farmer-Labor Women's Federation of Minnesota, and American Federation of Labor were all run by working-class women demanding better conditions to work and raise their families under. The speeches and demonstrations done by these groups of women underscored
26350-459: The world were hit hard, especially those dependent on heavy industry . Construction was virtually halted in many countries. Farming and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by approximately 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few alternate sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as grain farming, mining and logging, as well as construction, suffered the most. Most economies started to recover by 1933–34. However, in
26520-414: The world's troubles, such as famine in Belgium, as well as specific American problems which he had solved as food commissioner during the world war. The third solution to was to fall back on that old tactic of twisting the British tail. He employed that solution in 1925–1926 in the worldwide rubber crisis. The American auto industry consumed 70% of the world's output, but British investors controlled much of
26690-519: The year before. The Minthorn household was considered cultured and educational, and imparted a strong work ethic. Much like West Branch, Newberg was a frontier town settled largely by Midwestern Quakers. Minthorn ensured that Hoover received an education, but Hoover disliked the many chores assigned to him and often resented Minthorn. One observer described Hoover as "an orphan [who] seemed to be neglected in many ways". Hoover attended Friends Pacific Academy (now George Fox University ), but dropped out at
26860-470: Was a fashion show, attended by high society women of D.C. , urging consumers to boycott unethically sourced (to protest Japanese actions during the 30's) and overpriced Japanese silk (a popular luxury fabric at the time). Simultaneously, a large number of predominantly unemployed women (as well as some garment workers and representatives from the American Federation of Hosiery Workers ) outside
27030-415: Was a general loss of confidence in the economic future. The usual explanations include numerous factors, especially high consumer debt , ill-regulated markets that permitted overoptimistic loans by banks and investors, and the lack of high-growth new industries. These all interacted to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence and lowered production. Industries that suffered
27200-409: Was a risk that he would be labeled a British tool. There were three solutions, all of which he tried in close collaboration with the media, which greatly admired him. First came the image of the dispassionate scientist, emotionally uninvolved but always committed to finding and implementing the best possible solution. The second solution was to gain the reputation of a humanitarian, deeply concerned with
27370-639: Was increase interest rates. In the late 20th century, Winner of the Swedish Central Bank Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences economist Milton Friedman and his fellow monetarist Anna Schwartz argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and ameliorating banking panics , resulting in
27540-485: Was initially shy among fellow students, Hoover won election as student treasurer and became known for his distaste for fraternities and sororities . He served as student manager of both the baseball and football teams , and helped organize the inaugural Big Game versus the University of California . During the summers before and after his senior year, Hoover interned under economic geologist Waldemar Lindgren of
27710-469: Was raised in Norwich, Ontario , Canada, before moving to Iowa in 1859. Like most other citizens of West Branch, Jesse and Hulda were Quakers . Around age two "Bertie", as he was called during that time, contracted a serious bout of croup , and was momentarily thought to have died until resuscitated by his uncle, John Minthorn. As a young child he was often referred to by his father as "my little stick in
27880-404: Was rapidly growing. Department stores became the most popular place to receive female contraception and these stores created departments where women could shop for contraception in privacy. When women were becoming wary of purchasing inside department stores, manufacturers switched to selling at their homes. In 1930, female contraceptives outnumbered condom sales five to one. By 1940, the market size
28050-522: Was the director of the U.S. Food Administration , followed by post-war relief of Europe. A member of the Republican Party , he served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928 . His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression , and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as lackluster. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932 . Born to
28220-429: Was three times what it was in 1935. The Great Depression began in the United States of America and quickly spread worldwide. It had severe effects in countries both rich and poor. Personal income, consumption, industrial output, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%. Unemployment in the U.S. rose to 25%, and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around
28390-416: Was to conceal the intended function of products by marketing them as "feminine hygiene products", "protections", "security", and "dependability". In 1930, a legal verdict allowed contraceptive companies to freely advertise their products if the product's sole purpose was not birth control. Companies that previously avoided the birth control market capitalized on this opportunity and the demand for birth control
28560-624: Was too close to British interests. With the goal of encouraging wise business investments, Hoover made the Commerce Department a clearinghouse of information. He recruited numerous academics from various fields and tasked them with publishing reports on different aspects of the economy, including steel production and films. To eliminate waste, he encouraged standardization of products like automobile tires and baby bottle nipples. Other efforts at eliminating waste included reducing labor losses from trade disputes and seasonal fluctuations, reducing industrial losses from accident and injury, and reducing
28730-479: Was very uncommon during the time of segregation . Although the African American community was one of the hardest hit during the Great Depression, their struggle during this time often went unnoticed. Homeless African Americans were practically invisible during this time as the effects of Jim Crow and segregation were in full force. Many municipal shelters in the North were segregated and turned away from
28900-494: Was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis. Approximately one million Mexican Americans were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation even though a majority of them were born in the United States. In the midst of the Great Depression, he was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in
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