How Herbert Hoover Restored His Reputation

After being blamed for the Great Depression and having his image destroyed

Herbert Hoover in 1928 — From the Library of Congress, Public Domain

“I outlived the bastards” — Herbert Hoover, when asked about how he handled people who blamed him for the Great Depression.

When I was in high school, I saw Herbert Hoover as an incompetent villain. After all, he held office during one of the worst catastrophes of our nation’s history — the Great Depression. He is usually ranked in the bottom third of Presidents by historians and political scientists. Nicholas Lemann of The New Yorker wrote that Hoover was remembered as the following:

“The man who was too rigidly conservative to react adeptly to the Depression, as the hapless foil to the great Franklin Roosevelt, and as the politician who managed to turn a Republican country into a Democratic one.”

Hoover’s background

U.S. Food Administration Poster — Public Domain

In my AP U.S. History class, however, I would remember what my history teacher always said about Herbert Hoover — he was “the man.” When Herbert Hoover came to office, everyone loved him. Of course, once he left office, everyone hated him. However, my…