A 1929 Herbert Hoover Inaugural Medal
BillJones
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I went to political items collectors’ show yesterday. Oddly enough the problems that coin collectors are facing with a lack a nice, better material were in evidence at this show. I ran into a numismatic related item there, which was unusual. Usually political tokens and medals are at these shows are in poor condition (cleaned or damaged) and often over priced. In this case the medal was nice and I was able to negotiate a fair price.
Of all the U.S. presidents few have been vilified as much as Herbert Hoover. Many Americans blamed him for the Great Depression and went to great lengths to tie him to it. Shanty towns that cropped up as homes of the homeless were known as “Hoovervilles.” A “Hoover Car” was a broken down heap that was pulled by a horse. “Hoover blankets” were old newspapers that people used to avoid the cold. The Donkey Party pulled out Hoover’s name during every campaign from 1933 until the 1950s as an example of how the rich Elephant Party members didn’t care about the “common man.”
In reality Herbert Hoover was a very talented man. Unfortunately he did not have the proper talents to be a good president, especially during the Great Depression. Hoover’s cool, aloof manner made him seem cold and uncaring to Americans as they suffered through the worst economic depression in our nation’s history. Hoover’s political failure was not so much due to his policies to combat the Great Depression (They were actually similar to those Franklin Roosevelt employed on a smaller scale.) as much as it was his inability to connect with the people. Hoover left the American voters with the impression that he did not understand their problems and was not really working for with them to end the economic depression. This button from his 1928 presidential campaign reflects his public image as a dour and humorless man who viewed people much as he did the machines in his engineering projects.
Herbert Hoover was born in 1874. He was orphaned at age nine and was raised by extended family members. As self-made man, Hoover was a member of the first class of Stamford University and graduated with a degree in engineering. He took a job as an engineer for a mining firm in Australia. There he quickly worked his way up the ranks of the company. Later he formed his own mining company and earned a considerable personal fortune.
Having earned his fortune Hoover devoted his time to public service. One of his major projects was proving food to the refugees of World War I. Hoover succeeded in this project brilliantly, and by 1919 there was talk that he might well become the Donkey Party nominee for president. He turned down those overtures down, however, and President Warren Harding appointed him secretary of commerce. Hoover held that position during the Harding and Coolidge Administrations.
By 1928 he was the odds on favorite for the Elephant Party presidential nomination. Hoover won the presidency easily in 1928, but in October 1929 the Stock Market crash hit, and from then on it was all down hill for the Hoover administration. In 1932 he lost badly to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
This inaugural medal is unusual because it shows scenes from Hoover’s previous experiences on the reverse. At the bottom left there are references to his food relief programs in Europe during the World War I era. The right side shows scenes from a mining operation. The in the middle is an open book with the Latin phrase “De Re / Metallica” written on the pages. This refers to a book by Georg Bauer published in 1556 that cataloged the state of the art in mining, refining and smelting metals.
The total mintage for the Hoover metal was 1,012 in bronze and two pieces in gold that were awarded to Hoover and his vice president, Charles Curtis. Curtis was half Native American and is the only vice president to have had that ethnic background.
Retired dealer and avid collector of U.S. type coins, 19th century presidential campaign medalets and selected medals. In recent years I have been working on a set of British coins - at least one coin from each king or queen who issued pieces that are collectible. I am also collecting at least one coin for each Roman emperor from Julius Caesar to ... ?
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Oh, wait, no it didn't...
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Steve
Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Mr. Jones!
I like that one..........sculpted....
One of my favorite books translated by Hoover and his wife. And yes, her name was Lou.
Saw a PBS doc on Hoover not long ago. Learned a lot about him. Before, all I'd heard was the Depression era stuff he got tarred and feathered with. I never realized how incomplete that picture was. It seems the man did some very great humanitarian things in his career, leading up to the presidency.
60 years into this hobby and I'm still working on my Lincoln set!