Patrick lets get to it. Today i am going to talk with thomas schwartz, the director of the Herbert Hoover president ial library. He has been with the Hoover Library since 2011 and before that he served as the illinois , state historian and went on to lincoln collection at the Abraham Lincoln president ial library as an author and editor, his work recognized with a number of professional awards. He will take a step back in time, not all the way back to lincoln, but to the time of Herbert Hoover. Tom, are you there . I want to make sure we can hear you. Are you with us . How are you doing today . Obviously the library is closed. How is everyone doing . Thomas the staff is doing well. They are eager to return on a regular basis and we are eager to be able to safely reopen to the public when the opportunity avails itself, but i appreciate the opportunity. Patrick great. I know you have a great set of images and stories and tales. I have a feeling we have lots of questions. I will sign off. I will let you get into your program and i will pop back in when we are ready for q a. Have at it. Enjoy. Thomas thank you, patrick. So, you see the exterior of the hoover president ial library museum. We are the smallest facility. We were founded as a quaker community. Hoover was our first quaker president. How did hoover get in . He predates roosevelt. Two things occurred. What you are seeing is the hoover tower at Stanford University. Herbert hoover was with president wilson in versailles in europe, heading the American Relief administration. He provided humanitarian assistance to countries in the aftermath of world war i. He learned that many of the records for the countries that were removed from the map of europe and broken up into new countries, that those records were threatened with destruction. So at his own expense, hoover had them sent over to Stanford University. He made arrangements to rent space in the library and hired out of pocket two assistants to catalog materials. And over the years, those collections continue to grow. Hoover included his own private and public papers. What you are seeing, he intended to be his president ial library. Next slide. What happened was in the 1950s, Stanford University began to question why they had his private institution in the middle of the campus and why stanford had no control over the future of the Hoover Institution. At the same time, what you see is a painting of Herbert Hoovers birthplace home. Hoover always hated this painting. Not because of the artist. Grant wood is obviously a very famous american artist, but at his home it is that little, almost summer kitchen. Hoover tried to buy this home in 1928, when he was running for president , to have it reflect the actual cottage that he and members of his family grew up in. Next slide. The woman who owned the house was making pretty good revenue giving tours to the public at a dime per throw. She will not sell it to him in 1928. When she died in the 1930s, her family did not want it anymore and they would sell it to hoover. Mrs. Hoover removed the front portions and took the original cottage, relocated it properly on the grounds and restored it to the appearance you see today. It is operated by the National Parks service, there are 186 acres that surrounded the hoover president ial library that the park service operates, including not only hoovers birthplace home, a reconstruction of his fathers blacksmith shop. He and mrs. Hoover are buried on the knoll behind the library museum. When they were able to purchase and restore the house, they created a foundation to raise funds to make sure it would be available to the public free of charge. In the 1950s, at the same time, there were troubles at stanford over the future of the Hoover Institution. The locals decided want to build a small museum to emphasize they were the home of a president. They were asking hoover, could you give us one or two original items to put in the museum . After thinking about the future of his legacy at stanford, hoover thought, the president ial libraries act that was written so harry truman could have a library and future president s could have libraries, applies to any living president. So he decided to take over the operation of the Museum Project of the locals and give them something to never thought they would get, and that is a president ial library and museum. Next slide. Here you see Herbert Hoover and harry truman on the opening of the library museum. Hoovers 88th birthday, august 10, 1962. After they toured the library, they sat down in a reconstruction of the oval office that was part of the original museum and is no longer part of the new museum, and truman turns to hoover and says, well, mr. President , you have a damn find library, except for one problem. Hoover said, what is that, mr. President . Truman said, it is too damn small. Hoover reportedly smiled and said thats ok, the federal government will overstaff it. It. Next slide. The federal government has not overstaffed it. The staff is shrinking. The footprint did expand. We are under 48,000 square feet of a footprint, which makes us the smallest. Most president ial museums, the presidency is the major accomplishment in the lives of that individual. With hoover, it is not quite the case. His major accomplishments occurred before and after the presidency. I want to spend a little bit of time highlighting that so you get a better understanding of the man. This shows a Distribution Center in belgium, 1914, hoover is living in london with his wife and two young sons. He is a millionaire many times over as a mining engineer. He has his own consulting business. He is ready to return home once the war begins. An engineering friend visited him and said i need your help. I married a belgian woman and when the germans tried to do a quick defeat of france, they violated belgian neutrality. 90 of belgium is occupied by the germans, as well as large parts of france. The british and france have posted a blockade, they will not let food enter the country. Roughly 7 million to 8 Million People were beginning to have food problems. Hunger started occurring in major cities. Hoover is able to break the logjam by creating what we call today a Nongovernmental Organization commission for relief in belgium. It did not represent any particular country. It was created by hoover as an individual, by the American Ambassador to belgium, as an individual. The ambassador to spain, as an individual. By creating this neutral entity, the british, french and germans allowed it to take food to feed noncombatants. From 1914 to 1918, hoover raised over 1 billion in 1910 dollars to feed belgium and northern france. Next slide. When the u. S. Gets involved in the war, hoover turns the administration for the commission for the relief of belgium over to neutral parties. Woodrow wilson puts him into his cabinet as the head of the u. S. Food administration. Hoovers task was to provide sufficient food for the war effort. There are two ways you can increase the amount of food available the first is to increase production, but that takes time. The second is to get americans to reduce their consumption of food. Hoover was able to get american housewives to sign pledge cards, the pledge card, they would every day of the week, they would have to give up one or more of the four major food components that were necessary for the war effort wheat, sugar, meat, fat. You had meatless mondays, wheatless wednesdays. Hoover was able to get americans to voluntarily reduce consumption by 15 of these four major components. Next slide. After the war, hoover headed the American Relief administration, this shows all of his food relief efforts. From 1921 to 1923, he also fed noncombatants in russia during the russian famine. At this time, the Russian Revolution was going on. He was feeding civilian populations controlled by the bolshevik government and the White Russian government. It was opposed by the british and the american governments, but hoover felt that hungry people have no politics. Next slide. From 1920 when warren g. Harding gets elected president , he offers hoover to either be secretary of interior or secretary of commerce. Interior is much more prestigious. Hoover takes secretary of commerce, a sleepy backwater government agency. He builds it into one of the most important Government Agencies under the harding and coolidge administrations. Perhaps most significantly, and what lives with us today, is hoover getting industries to create industrial standards. This lowered the cost of goods to consumers, and it also allowed consumers, no matter what company they bought a product from within that industry, it would work with parts from other companies in that industry. For example, there were 42 different sized milk containers when hoover came in as secretary of commerce. He got the dairy industry to get it down to pint, quart, halfgallon and gallon. The size bricks in your home was established when hoover was secretary of commerce. Plumbing standards to this day were those set by hoover. Sized lumber, goes on and on. Next slide. So, 1928, hoover gets elected by a landslide. Most people connect hoover with the collapse of the market in october and the depression. Actually, not the depression, but the Great Depression, which makes it even worse. We have to remind people that hoover had accomplishments in his administration that tend to be overshadowed. Probably the one that most of the public knows that he used the power of the federal government to put al capone in jail by getting him on tax evasion. Next slide. This is what most people know hoover by these shantytowns known as hoovervilles. The mischaracterization of hoover was he was a donothing president who was cold and heartless and did not care. As you know from that brief overview of his humanitarian efforts, he is clearly not a coldhearted person. There were systemic issues that transcended the hoover administration. We call it the Great Depression because, typically, it is dated by the collapse of the markets in 1929 and goes all the way to the end of world war ii. The markets do not regain their predepression values until the early 1950s. There are a lot of complicated issues, both domestic and international, that hoover was dealing with, that he was not able to solve. His successors also had trouble solving. Next slide. So, this little video clip shows hoover tossing the medicine ball around. He has it right now. He just threw it. There are members of the cabinet and Supreme Court justices that make up this group. It is a nine pound medicine ball. This develops into a sport called hooverball. He is the only president to have a sport named after him. People throw a nine pound medicine ball over a net and people have to toss it back. The white house physician did this so hoover could lose weight. He was 210 when he took office. He did hooverball every day between 7 00 and 8 00. He dropped down to 175 pounds when he left office. Next slide. When hoover left the presidency, it was not on the best of terms with Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt and the new dealers constantly reminded the American Public it was hoovers depression, and that hoover did not know how to solve the problems, and that is what the new deal was doing. It was very difficult when members of the brain trust would tell president roosevelt, you know, the smartest person on this issue is Herbert Hoover, we should bring him in for advice. You cant bring in someone for advice when you have already labeled them as being the person that has caused all the problems to begin with. When Franklin Roosevelt dies, harry truman takes over. He realizes that there are going to be immense problems with feeding, clothing and providing medical assistance in a postwar world. The only person with experience feeding tens of millions of people during the war and after the war is Herbert Hoover. He calls hoover to the white house, asked if he would help him with a postwar assessment and the 71yearold man said, sure. In 58 days he goes to Something Like 38 countries on a factfinding mission. That is the first of many tasks truman will use hoover to assist him. What hoover does, he lives to be 90, he has this very long post presidency. Hoover essentially sets the model of how an expresident should behave as a counselor to the president. Next slide. This is our Research Room. These are students from culver stockton. We have about 10 million manuscripts, about 268 cubic feet of photographic material and 15,600 artifacts. The Research Room is used quite a bit. Largely as a way to Teach College students, High School Students and junior high students how to use primary sources. Next slide. This is a picture of rose wilder lane. Those of you who listen to alan price about the Kennedy Library learned they have the papers of ernest hemingway. We have the papers of rose wilder lane. She did a biography of hoover. She is credited of being one of the founders of the libertarian movement. More importantly, she is the ghost editor of her mothers books, Laura Ingalls wilder, the little house on the prairie series. Among roses papers, we have the big chief tablets that contain her mothers drafts of her writings. Next slide. So, we end on this note. This is kind of the entrance to our reconstruction of the waldorf astoria apartment that hoover lived in in the last decades of his life. The file cabinets contained his Research Notes and drafts of the many books he wrote as an expresident. What is most important is behind in that framed picture. That is 1865 print by Alexander Hay richie of a painting in the u. S. Capitol. It shows lincoln reading the preliminary emancipation proclamation to his cabinet. Today, september 22, marks the 157th anniversary of that event. Hoovers grandfather bought it. The quakers were abolitionists. West branch was a station on the underground railroad. John brown visited before his failed assault on harpers ferry. Hoover used lincoln as his model for what the president should be. What the presidency should be. Also, how an individual should live their life. He thought lincolns life exemplified the notion of the open field of fair chance, the right to rise, and expanding the boundaries of liberty in the aspirations of the declaration that all men are created equal. The other part, though, that hoover shared with lincoln both were selfmade men, both ended up in a much more prosperous position than where they began in life but selfmade in lincolns and hoovers notion of the term, the most important aspect was the making of the self, improving your character and moral core. It is important to end on this note, not only because it is the anniversary of this very important moment in history, where the boundaries of freedom were expanded, but also what made america unique. What lincoln thought made america unique and what hoover thought made america unique, and that is the right to rise where you begin in life is not necessarily where you end, and the opportunity to improve your moral core to help the larger good. Thank you. That does it. Patrick fantastic, tom. Thank you for that overview. I know you have looked at a couple of the previous president ial Library Videos that i have had the opportunity however, i have not made it to west branch. It is on the list when we are allowed to travel again. It is great to see that preview and i look forward to seeing the park service, the land. I am sure it is impressive. I want to invite our viewers to ask questions. As a reminder on your youtube chat, put the questions in there. While we are waiting for those, we have a couple here. I want to welcome folks from all over the country. ,e have we hagen, new jersey chevy chase, maryland, st. George, utah, durham, north carolina, san diego, california, several folks in the washington metropolitan area. Cary, north carolina, bloomfield hills, michigan, bellevue, washington. Norman, oklahoma. We have a lot of hoover followers from all over the country, which is terrific. You talk a little bit about the Research Room. Before we jump into the questions, are there researchers i know obviously there are students now, but are there researchers coming in still writing about and researching the administration, or has that been exhausted . I am curious about that side of things. Thomas the interesting thing about hoover is a lot of the researchers coming in, as commerce secretary, he gathered so much data on so many different topics, we get people coming in, essentially, to look at that data, not necessarily hoover. Which is fine, that is the purpose of the archives, for people to come in and use the materials in new and different ways. There has been, obviously, the biographies within the last 20 years. The initial biographies of hoover were either very critical, or almost idealized him. Now, there is a balance. I think most historians that have studied hoover understand that there is a lot that he did that was right, especially some of the economic steps he took during the depression. And, there is a lot more continuity between programs that hoover began as president and what carries on in the new deal. Neither hoover nor roosevelt, if they were alive, would ever agree to that. I think historians are seeing trends and understandings that begin with one and continue with the other. There is a great new biography by kenneth white, Herbert Hoover an extraordinary man in extraordinary t