![[Abridged] Presidential Histories - 31.C) Herbert Hoover & the origins of The Great Depression, an interview with Robert McElvaine](https://storage.googleapis.com/goodpods-images-bucket/episode_images/6525cc0e1e417ed39f762f8124d08715bf80d60045828e7dbdde538ee5b7f9b9.avif)
31.C) Herbert Hoover & the origins of The Great Depression, an interview with Robert McElvaine
[Abridged] Presidential Histories
02/20/23
•58m
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"The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis," - Herbert Hoover, on the eve of the Great Depression, Oct. 25, 1929
What caused the Great Depression? Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College and the author of Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the “Forgotten Man” and The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941, argues the very factors that made the 1920's roar were the instruments of its destruction - mass production, easy credit, and an ads industry that told Americas, 'spend away today, don't worry about tomorrow.'
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"It simply comes to this: men hate me more after they work for me than before. They don't need think they are coming to a snap. They're coming to a perfect hell and I am the devil." - Herbert Hoover, 1897, written from the gold fields of Australia.
The United States had seen generals, publishers, history professors, and lawyers - oh so many lawyers - become president. But it had never had a businessman president before Herbert Hoover. David E. Hamilton, a history professor at the University of Kentucky, discusses how Hoover's background in business gave him the tools to handle some aspects of the presidency, but left him entirely unequipped to handle others.
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32.) Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1933-1945
March 6, 2023
•58m
"This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." - Franklin Roosevelt
~~~
When FDR was sworn in on March 4, 1933, the nation, and the world, were in dire straights. Nation's around the world had abandoned democracy for militaristic authoritarian solutions, and many Americans were tempted to join them. Radio priest Father Coughlin espoused an American fascism from the right, while Louisiana kingpin Huey Long flirted with a socialist form of dictatorial power on the left. As if to underscore the danger, a 32-year-old bricklayer attempted to assassinate Roosevelt a month before he was sworn in, narrowly missing in his attempt.
American democracy itself seemed to be in peril.
Follow along as FDR attempts to follow in the footsteps of his famous relative Theodore Roosevelt, learns humility and compassion from a bout of polio that left him paralyzed, reaches the presidency on a message of hope during the darkest days of the Great Depression, attempts to end the depression and save democracy with a transformative campaign of New Deal economic legislation, and then goes toe-to-toe with the evils of fascism in the greatest war in world history.
Bibliography
1. FDR – Jean Edward Smith
2. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times - Kenneth Whyte
3. Truman – David McCullough
4. Eisenhower in War and Peace – Jean Edward Smith
5. An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 – Robert Dallek
6. Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream – Doris Kearns Goodwin
7. T.R. the last Romantic – H.R. Brands
8. The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made – Patricia O’Toole
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