Transcripts For CSPAN2 The Presidency The Life Times Of Fir

My name is tom schwartz director of the Herbert Hoover president ial library museum. Before i introduce todays author a few housekeeping matters. If youve not seen our new temporary exhibit. Deliverance america and the famine and soviet russia 192123 please take time after the talk to do so. It tells the story of how Herbert Hoover and the American Relief administration. Fed more than 10 Million People on a daily basis. During one of russias worst famines we also welcome speech cspan. Who are recording todays event for later broadcast . These programs would not be possible. Without the support of the hoover president ial foundation who are in the midst of raising 20 Million Dollars for a complete renovation of our permanent galleries . To learn more about the project. And how to become a member visit their membership table in the lobby. We are also grateful for the support of diamond v. As many of you know, they are a Global Nutrition and Health Company and nearby cedar rapids. Annette dunlap has been a north carolinabased freelance writer for more than 30 years. Among her many books are the only fulllength biographies of first Lady Frances Folsom Cleveland as well as a biography of Calvin Coolidges Vice President charles gate stause. And most recent biography is why she is here today. A woman of adventure life and times of first Lady Lou Henry Hoover was released earlier this month by the university of Nebraska Press one would have to go back 18 years to find another book length biography of Lou Henry Hoover. Dunlap conducted much of her research before covid closed the Research Room for nearly two years. Thank police is here to give us some of her insights on her findings. Following her remarks will be a brief question and answer period and then book sales and signings will conclude the event in the lobby area. At this time please put all of your cell phones on vibrate. And join me in welcoming annette dunlap. Well, good afternoon. It is just so great to see you and especially your willingness to come out on what is an absolutely beautiful beautiful day. So what i want to do is make sure that it is worth your time to be here this afternoon and share with you some of the interesting things that ive learned about Lou Henry Hoover who as the woman who inspired me to do the research the archivist at the national first. Ladies library told me lou is an underrepresented first lady and my friend michelle didnt know the half of it before i get started a few. Thank yous are in order first. I have profuse. Thanks for the hoover to the hoover president ial foundation who through several Research Grants enabled me to help fund a portion of my research to this location and work on the biography, and i have a special thanks to tom as well as his staff three archivists who are absolutely tremendous craig wright, Matt Schaefer and spencer howard. They always went above and beyond and without their efforts their work and their dedication to lou their own commitment to archival work. This biography would not be possible. Also want to thank university of Nebraska Press they are my first public first time i have published with them. They have done a superior job and i am very very pleased with the book that they have put out. Its formatting and i hope that you will enjoy it as well. So with that behind us, lets go ahead and get started and lets Start Talking about Lou Henry Hoover. So lou was born on waterloo, iowa on march 29th, 1874 her parents charles and florence were both originally from worcester, ohio their families had migrated to iowa individually and then the two met up and were married in june of 1873 lou as you can see from this photograph is the older of two children. The other picture is of her sister jean whose birthday is right around the corner at the end of june and jean was born in 1882. The who excuse me the henry family did not stay in iowa Florence Henry had asthma another Health Problems in charles was also looking for new opportunities in banking which was his area of profession. So the family had traveled to texas and spent some time in corsicana they had returned to waterloo. Thats when jean was born then they went to kansas where charles thought he had a Business Opportunity and that also did not materialize and finally in 1889. They moved to whittier, california, which was established as a quaker enclave the henrys were not quakers they were visited a variety of churches lou one time wrote in a letter that she had been quartered an eighth and to the Episcopal Church the Methodist Church the presbyterian church, but after her marriage to her rehoover, she pretty much identified with the Quaker Community if you know anything about the quaker faith, you know that one of the tenants of that religion is that they believe in complete equality of men and women and that in and of itself is important because what we see going throughout the entirety of lose life is a woman who was extremely committed to equal opportunities for women across the spectrum not only in terms of Educational Opportunity physical activity pursuit of careers, but she also believed in way more egalitarian marriages than what she experienced herself in fact if she were alive today she would very much approve of the fact that husbands and fathers are beginning to take on a larger and larger share of housekeeping and child rearing these things that she was responsible for and her in their entirety and youd bear in mind as i share with you many of the things that she did that. She was also managing a household and had primary responsibility for the rearing of the hoovers two sons so i mentioned that lou was all about gary egalitarianism, and i dont think that any photograph better describes this and this one right here this young lady. Who is 15 years old and as holding this rifle happens to be our good friend lou henry . The story goes that she was given the name lou because dad was hoping for a boy that didnt happen, but whats also interesting about lous name is that she doesnt have and its not only is it a unisex name . She doesnt have a gender identifying middle name. So when i was doing the research on Francis Folsom Cleveland Frank was a common nickname for girls named francis, but Francis Cleveland being known as frank as a child oftentimes would get classified as boy as a boy on the School Roster so she began to identify herself by her by the nickname frank, but her middle name, which was clara which would designate her gender lou who is roughly the same about 10 years younger than Francis Cleveland was did not have any gender identifying name and then you think about the fact that her last name is henry. And yet she very much knew that she was a woman and she embraced being a girl and a woman but her father art also taught her how to hunt how to fish how to skin a rabbit and dress it and eat it and she was a phenomenal horse woman and road horses until she was into into her early 60s. Lou is the first female major in geology in Stanford University. And again, this is another example of a woman that is blazing trails who is doing something other women have not done. There were a small handful of women who had begun to enter into the Earth Sciences one of them had already attained a doctorate and was teaching at a Womens College here in the east. Excuse me. Im in iowa and the east coast and and a few others were also doing some work with the Us Geological service. So lou is the first woman to study geology she ran into some hurdles with that because they would take field trips. Her mother was concerned about where the chaperones were. Hoping that the professors wives were in attendance because surely it was not appropriate for lou to be the lone female student going out with her fellow male students to do field trips out into the woods and into the surrounding countryside. Its very curious, but lou does not answer her mother directly to that question. Stanford is where lou meets Herbert Hoover who im going to refer to as bert through the remainder of my talk because thats what he was known as to his friends and his family and also helps distinguish us to see distinguish him from his older son who is known as herbert. So lou meets bert at stanford, they are introduced by Professor John c. Branner. John brenner is the catalyst for wailu has ended up at stanford lew originally had a teaching certificate. She started at los angeles normal school, which has now ucla when her family moved him on to ray. She transferred to san jose normal and thats where she got the certificate but she wasnt able to find a teaching job that suited her she tried to get into banking because that was her fathers profession and lou is it was extremely good throughout our whole life with numbers and accounting but again being a woman there were not going to be any Career Opportunities for her there. And so she happened to hear branner do a series of lectures on geology and one of the things that is interesting when we go back to this photograph. This is taken on mount wilson, but on mount gleeson, which is another one of the Southern California mountains, lou and her father worked a gold mine. So lou had already had experience with mining and working with ors and so geology really interested her then she heard branders lectures and stanford had opened up very unique in that it was not a State University was privately owned, but its orientation was to Public Service and its orientation was to make education equal for both men and women. So stanford was a great place for lou to end up because of the ethos that it promoted and because it fit in with her own views of opportunities for women, so lou and bert meet they are in terms even though lou is by chronological age older than bert by several months. They were born both both born in 1874 burt being born in august of 1874. But bert was in the pioneer or first class of stanford and lieu, of course is coming in in the fourth incoming class. So bert goes ahead and graduates he begins to find employment his employment takes him outside of california. Hes in nevada. Hes in new mexico and then he gets connected with a londonbased company and he ends up in australia bear in mind. This is preinternet age. Yeah, were not talking about setting up a skype call. Every night to stay in touch so they had some kind of understanding there were probably letters that were exchanged in the process and then bird has an opportunity to go to china with that opportunity comes an increase in salary. Burt was already helping to find his brother theodores education and providing some Financial Support to his sister and to some other family members, but now with this Salary Increase he is able to offer lou marriage and so he has this very very romantic telegram it goes going to china via San Francisco. Will you go with me . The curious thing about the telegram is that the telegrams at the time went through the post office . They had a new postmaster. The postmaster did not know that lou was miss lou henry. He just assumed that this telegram from bert. To lou was one guy to another and so he posts it the public bulletin board. And thats how lou managed to find her marriage proposal. She was equally romantic in the way in which she responded. One word yes. And this is their wedding day picture. Bird sales back from australia lands in San Francisco comes to monterey the couple are married on february 10th 1899 and they had right back to San Francisco that afternoon and have set sail for china the very next morning. So one of the things that i found remarkable as i worked on lous life and started to put put the book together. Is how much of lose life was defined by . International conflicts ill share her experiences in the boxer rebellion in china and just a minute, but let me just give you sort of the the boundaries of that. When she got out of stanford in 1898. The United States entered the spanishamerican war and she helped her mother roll bandages for the local red cross. She is in china during the box of rebellion and even though she its kind of downplayed when you read the details of her correspondence and her journaling during that time her life and the life of all americans and all foreigners was very much at risk. Well spend a lot of time talking about her work in world war one and of course a lot of berts very notable work is is during world war one. But lou was also still alive at the outbreak of World War Two. And she had some involvement in some charitable work at the start of that conflict as well. So her life and her involvement is framed by the those four conflicts. And thats also including the other the other events that occurred during her lifetime, which would include the Great Depression which becomes an unfortunately defining. Event in the lives of both hoovers and does them both a tremendous injustice. Because it doesnt it it hides what this couple really did for the United States and for the world. So, let me circle back now to the box of rebellion. The boxer rebellion was essentially an uprising of a group of native chinese who resented the influence and presence of foreigners in the country. And when you dig into some of the history of china, you really do begin to see that there was a tremendous amount of foreign influence. It wasnt just americans were actually latecomers to this influence. The germans wanted a piece the russians wanted a piece the japanese wanted a piece the british wanted a piece the french wanted a piece. I mean you had these countries that were functioning as world powers or regional powers really wanting to have Strong Influence on what was going on in china. So you have this group who we translate their their term as boxers because of their boxing in to stay physically fit. And also because they believed it had religious connotations to them and theyre supported by the dowager empress of china. And so there is a massive uprising there is a huge massacre of missionaries and other foreigners and there is this effort to rid china of these foreign of foreign presence. And so you have troops coming from all those countries that i just named including the United States to not only protect the citizens of their countries who are living in china, but also to stand against what the boxers attempting to do. So the boxers burned out compounds were foreigners were living. They pulled up railroad tracks. They burned bridges the americans and all other foreigners started to find themselves having to congregate in small enclaves one of the initial letters. That was was given to me in learning more about lou was a letter that she wrote to her friend from stanford evelyn white in which lou appears to be downplaying what she is experiencing because she says well evan white you should have come to china this summer you missed the siege of the age. And yet at the same time mary bainbridge, who was the wife of the american consulate is sending lou a quick note and saying that the real ray bridge was burned overnight. It looks like theyre going to have to have all the americans including the doctors come into the compound in which the american consulate is is living and and their quarters and it looks like you know, and she wants to know how do you and then mary brain . Brain, go bainbridge goes and how do you feel about all this . I guess there is no sense in youre getting upset and even if there were theres you dont seem to be the type who would get upset anyway, and theres no reason for fainting away. So it was just this whole idea of what they were experiencing and lou chronicles in a lot of detail the military activities her interaction with the military. Theyre trying to make sure they have enough food and then finally how their age she and bird are finally able to leave china after enough of the hostilities have died down that theres a way for them to have safe passage. In reality, there is a little note that lou wrote. That stated august 4th. And she wrote it after her after herbert was born in 1903 and she slips it into the diary with where she had chronicled what had been going on during the box rebellion, and she writes august 4th. Little herberts future birthday. Why did we ever return to china . And so the hoovers eventually settle somewhat permanently. They always make annual trips to the United States, but the firm that bird is working for be with mooring is based in london. And so they rent homes in london, and this is where both of the hoover children are born herbert. Who is born in 1903 and alan who was born in 1907 and one of the first things that lou does after shes up and around again is to go to the American Embassy and register them so that they will have their american citizenship. The other thing