National Study: USA: Hoover Presidency

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Hoover wrote a book American Individualism in 1922 which summarised his worldview and vision for America. It informed his response to the Great Depression.

Summary:

Excerpt: 

1928 Campaign Speech:

The widespread prosperity of the 1920s ended abruptly with the stock market crash in October 1929 and the great economic depression that followed.

The papers of Herbert Hoover had been accumulating since 1919 at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. In 1960 Hoover decided to donate materials beginning with his time as Secretary of Commerce onwards to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library.

Primary Sources and Fireside Chats: Herbert Hoover

National hero, American President, and... the man at the center of the Great Depression? Like most men of history, Herbert Hoover leaves a complex legacy.

• The New Yorker: Hating on Herbert Hoover

• The Atlantic: Herbert Hoover is the Model Republicans Need

• Lumen Learning: The Great Depression and President Hoover's Response

• The Balance: President Herbert Hoover's Economic Policies

• The Library of Economics and Liberty: Hoover's Economic Policies

• PRIMARY SOURCES: Encyclopedia.com - Herbert Hoover

• Herbert Hoover Responds to the Stock Market Crash, By: Dawes, K. P., MA, Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2021 in Ebsco Discovery Centre Research Starter

• State Historical Society of Iowa : The Great Depression and Herbert Hoover

• Hoover and Historians: The Resurrection of a President

• JSTOR database: Herbert Hoover - A reinterpretation

From historian’s perspective that Hoover never understood the enormity of the problem (by historian David Hamilton)

From the perspective that Hoover’s approach made Great Depression worse

From economist’s perspective that Hoover was proactive and interventionalist in his response to Great Depression

From the economist’s’ perspective that the Hoover myth needs revising

From historian’s perspective that Hoover has unrecognised merits and accomplishments (by Historian Robert Dallek)

From historian’ perspective that Hoover was a visionary but an inept politician (by Historian David M Kennedy)

Republicans were traditionally committed to economic policy of Laissez Faire and believed in the forces of the Free Market. This informed Hoover’s response to the Great Depression and is the basis of the contested “Hoover myth”.

Definition of Laissez Faire:

Simple Explanation of Laissez Faire:

Complex Explanation of Laissez Faire :

Academic article explaining relationship between Hoover and Republican Economic Policy

Outline of Hoover’s response to GD

Overview of Hoover’s economic policies and his role in the Great Depression

Summary of Hoover’s response to Great Depression