Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Herbert Hoover Library and Museum

Saturday I reported on my January visit to the Herbert Hoover birthplace in West Branch, Iowa. Just south of that complex is the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum.

After decades of being an overlooked president, Hoover is back. Okay, he's not viewed as a successful president. Hoover's one term is of course is dominated by the Great Depression, which began in October, 1929--seven months into his presidency.

Contemporary politicians, including Barack Obama, have been declaring that our quite-serious economic downturn is the worst decline since the Depression, an absolutely ridiculous claim. Ronald Reagan inherited a stagnant economy from Jimmy Carter, and it quickly dovetailed into a deep recession. I was around for that one, and that recession was worse, at least so far, than our current unhappy mess.

Anyway, Hoover is hot now, so my January visit to West Branch, Iowa was a well-timed one.

Hoover, who died in 1964, lived to age 90. As I blogged in my earlier post, Hoover was born in 1874 in West Branch, but after being orphaned, moved to Oregon. .

Every few months a new special exhibit graces the museum, when Little Marathon Pundit and I visited, it was the last day of "A Very Elvis Christmas." It wasn't much to look at. A popular Elvis Presley album is titled 50 Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong.

But two dozen Elvis Christmas trees can be. That was the "special" exhibit: just a bunch of Elvis-themed Christmas trees.

But maybe I'm being too scholarly. After all, the Bill Clinton Presidential Library and Museum's current special exhibit is "The Art of the Chopper." Motorcycles, not helicopters.

Two weeks ago, a new Hoover Museum special exhibit opened, Collecting Lincoln: Three Collectors' Perspective. The bicentennial of Abraham Lincoln's birth will take place next week.

Most of the permanent museum displays focus on Hoover's non-presidential life. Hoover's expertise in geology, and his business acumen, made him a wealthy man early into his adulthood. He commented that if a man "has not made a million dollars by the time he is forty he is not worth much."

That statement would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Hoover was a Quaker, and philanthropy was ingrained into his psyche. Before America's entry into World War I, then during American involvement, as well as after the Great War, he led the effort to feed hungry Europeans.

German-occupied Belgium was the first nation to receive aid from Hoover's effort. The Belgians were grateful, many of the cotton sacks that stored grain were transformed into makeshift tapestries. Some of those bags are on display.

Hoover's eight years as Commerce secretary, which preceded his presidential term, are documented by the museum as well. Hoover viewed business-interaction as a method to promote world peace. He was an effective head of Commerce, who ignited what was until then a moribund cabinet agency.

And then the presidency. Just as the Depression dominated Hoover's four-year term, the Depression dominates the presidential displays. Warts and all. Contrary what to what is taught in high school and college, Hoover actively tried to halt and reverse the economic downturn. After Franklin Roosevelt defeated Hoover in the 1932 election, the economy, fueled by multiple bank failures, got much worse.

Hoover lived 31 years after moving out of the White House. He served as a one-man conservative and philanthropic think-tank from his suite in New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel. Hoover traveled extensively, even meeting Adolf Hitler in 1938. Someone took a picture, and yes, that picture is on display.

After Roosevelt's death, Hoover was America's only living ex-president. Harry S Truman called on Hoover to assist post-World War II famine relief, and served as the chairman of the Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government, informally known as the Hoover Commission. Truman followed through on many of the commission's suggestions.

The last exhibit consists of a replica Hoover's Waldorf Astoria suite, where he worked eight hour days until shortly before his death.

Hoover was a great American whose life should be celebrated. He was not a successful president, but he very well may have been our greatest ex-president.

Hoover and his wife Louise are buried a short walk from the library.

Hopefully our current economic downturn will be s short one. However, since there is so much talk about the Great Depression, a special exhibit, perhaps on the cultural aspects of those bad old days, is in order.

After all, Hoover is hot. And Hoover, a great businessman who was the son of a blacksmith, would tell the people running his library what to do when you have a hot iron.

Related posts:

• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Herbert Hoover Birthplace
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Where Grant worked as a clerk
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Mrs. Butterworth
• Midwestern Presidential Pathway: Ulysses S. Grant Home

Next: Ronald Reagan's Dixon, Illinois.