USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -Herbert Hoover (1874-1964), America’s 31st president, took office in 1929, the year the U.S. economy plummeted into the Great Depression. Although his predecessors’ policies undoubtedly contributed to the crisis, which lasted over a decade, Hoover bore much of the blame in the minds of the American people.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Great Depression was not a failure of capitalism or of markets, but rather a result of misguided government policies-specifically, the Federal Reserve allowing the money stock to collapse as panics engulfed the banking system.

Detailed explanation-3: -Among the suggested causes of the Great Depression are: the stock market crash of 1929; the collapse of world trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff; government policies; bank failures and panics; and the collapse of the money supply.

Detailed explanation-4: -For many years, both scholars and the American public held Hoover in extremely low esteem, blaming him for the Great Depression and criticizing his efforts to solve the crisis. Beginning in the 1970s, however, Hoover’s reputation began to recover.