Herbert Hoover had Hoovervilles built by the government for the homeless during the Great Depression

[no_hypocrisy]

I was substituting for an aide in a fourth grade in a public school in an affluent community in suburban NJ. The teacher was doing a program on presidents and they were up to Herbert Hoover.

I was grading math homework with one ear cocked to the lesson. I heard her say what I have in my title of this post and my free association imagined I just heard Megyn Kelly on Fox News. It wasn't. Then I thought that I misheard, misunderstood. It couldn't be.

But she repeated it: Herbert Hoover had the government build homes for the homeless during the Great Depression and he named them Hoovervilles.

I excused myself, ran to find a computer, printed out a couple of websites with the correct information and nicely offered them to her. She seemed both surprised and grateful.

What I think happened: We've heard about that Texas Education Board that was dumbing down, censoring, and re-writing history textbooks. That has to be it: She was teaching out of a Teachers' Guide and never heard about the true history of Hoovervilles.

I'm still bugged that she didn't correct herself and these kids now think that the President who enabled the Great Depression was a benevolent paternal figure who tried to help the Poor and Homeless.

[snappyturtle]

1. The teacher's version better fits the "American Dream" meme. nt

[PVnRT]

2. Coolidge enabled the Great Depression, not Hoover

Hoover took office months before the Depression started. I'm not a fan, but saying he "enabled" it is just as wrong as saying he built Hoovervilles to help poor people.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I consider it to be enabling that Hoover believed that the only way to stem

the effects of the Stock Market Crash was free market capitalism, let the Banks fix themselves, wait for everything to get better with another business cycle. He thought any government action would be anti-capitalistic. Coolidge let it happen but Hoover didn't remediate.

[izquierdista]

8. Who was in Coolidge's cabinet?

Who was Secretary of Commerce during the '20s? Who gave big business a free run and helped them pump up the bubble? Maybe you should be reading up on some history.

[PVnRT]

12. So, Bush isn't to blame for the economic crash in 2008?

Just curious.

[pampango]

13. Coolidge was indeed the 'enabler' but Hoover's response to the Depression was pathetic.

Hoover rejected direct federal relief payments to individuals, as he believed that a dole would be addictive, and would reduce the incentive to work. He was also a firm believer in balanced budgets, and was unwilling to run a budget deficit to fund welfare programs. ... In 1929 he authorized the Mexican Repatriation program to combat rampant unemployment, reduce the burden on municipal aid services, and remove people seen as usurpers of American jobs. The program was largely a forced migration of approximately 500,000 Mexicans and Mexican Americans to Mexico, and continued until 1937.

In June 1930, over the objection of many economists, Congress approved and Hoover signed into law the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act. The legislation raised tariffs on thousands of imported items. The intent of the Act was to encourage the purchase of American-made products by increasing the cost of imported goods, while raising revenue for the federal government and protecting farmers. However, economic depression now spread through much of the world, and other nations increased tariffs on American-made goods in retaliation, reducing international trade, and worsening the Depression.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Hoover#Great_Depression

Hoover's commitment to balancing the budget in a time of severely declining revenues meant federal budget cuts that accelerated the severity of the Depression. He forced the deportation of Hispanics, "seen as usurpers of American jobs", without regard to whether they were American citizens, legal immigrants or not. He signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff "worsening the Depression".

All of these were reversed by FDR during his administration.

[Cleita]

3. Why would a teacher not know what a Hooverville was?

Our education system is worse than I thought.

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Yeah, I know. I learned about them in Seventh Grade by a teacher non pareil.

[Brother Buzz]

6. Any mention of the Bonus Army fiasco?

Summer camp!

[kemah]

14. The orginal occupiers

The reason the GI bill was passed right after WWII. Corporations were afraid that if they put WWII vets back into the soup lines they would have similar demonstrations but with more dire results. These vets were organized, trained, and would not have risked their lives just to be put back into a soup line.

[Redstate Bluegirl]

15. The MacArthur we're NOT learning about!

5:58 in

[Brother Buzz]

16. Small world, Eisenhower was there too.

I suspect he didn't shed tears many when Truman fired him sixteen years later. I often wonder if Eisenhower would have canned MacArthur had he been in the European theater during the war.

Oh, MacArthur is at 4:58

[Javaman]

7. did she actually keep the stuff you printed out or

just give you lip service with a smile?

she probably didn't give the correct info to the students because she didn't want to.

it could have been a "bless your heart" moment.

this is texas after all (yes, I live in Austin)

[demmiblue]

9. I think that you should gift the teacher/classroom with:

[a2liberal]

10. You had me going for a bit there (n/t)

[HubertHeaver]

11. What educational manerials was this woman teaching from?

I would like to know her information source.