Jan/Feb 2026 (Volume 18, Issue 1)

 

(Publisher’s note: The second part of Timothy Walch’s series will be published in the March/April 2026 issue of Iowa History Journal.)

 

By Timothy Walch

 

There are a lot of similarities between Abraham Lincoln and Herbert Hoover. Both were born in primitive circumstances on the frontier of a new nation. In fact, their birthplaces were remarkably similar even though Lincoln and Hoover were born 65 years apart. Hoover’s board and batten cottage had no more amenities than did Lincoln’s log cabin.

 

Lincoln and Hoover also were men driven to succeed in spite of the lowly circumstances of their births. Lincoln, of course, was self-educated, but became one of the foremost attorneys of his time. Hoover bulled his way into the first class at Stanford University and became the most successful mining engineer of the age. They were self-made and owed nothing to anyone for their success.

 

And neither man was content with his success. Both Lincoln and Hoover sought the presidency in a quest to improve the lives of ordinary Americans and yet neither man had the opportunity to implement their visions for the nation. 

 

Both men faced the most devastating crises of their respective centuries: Lincoln had the American Civil War and Hoover had the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, the presidencies of both men were swept up in circumstances beyond their control.

 

That is where the similarities end, however. Lincoln, of course, is remembered as the savior of the nation, while Hoover is blamed for the worst economic crisis in U.S. history. Lincoln is considered one of our greatest presidents, and Hoover is tarred as one of the worst. How could Lincoln ever have been much of an influence on Hoover? The evidence is in Hoover’s personal papers archived at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in the president’s hometown of West Branch.

 

To say that Lincoln’s philosophy and values were an important influence on Hoover is something of an understatement. Like so many youth of his generation, Hoover was born in an era of Lincoln worship. All children—including young Hoover—were encouraged to learn from the life of Father Abraham.

 

But the Hoover family may have been a bit more devoted to Lincoln than most. Later in life, Hoover would recall that only one picture had hung in his little birthplace cottage. That picture was an engraving of Lincoln, surrounded by his cabinet officers, just as he was about to sign the Emancipation Proclamation. 

 

There was not much else to look at in that cabin, so a bright young boy like Hoover must have studied that picture intensely because the picture later became a prized possession. Although most material goods held little value for Hoover, he kept track of that picture. In a note, “Memorandum on Engraving by Carpenter,” located within the Hoover Presidential Papers, Hoover wrote, “This copy was given to my father Jessie Hoover by his father Eli Hoover soon after my father was married and set up housekeeping in the little cottage at West Branch in about 1871. After my mother’s death, the print was kept by [my] Uncle Allan Hoover until his death in 1922 when it went to his brother Davis Hoover. Uncle Davis gave it to me in 1927.”

 

Was this picture important to Hoover? You bet it was! It was Hoover’s one material link to his father, grandfather, and the Great Emancipator. But Hoover did not dwell on that picture—or on Lincoln, for that matter—in his youth. For example, Hoover does not mention Lincoln in any of his letters home or in his college papers. We have no record of Hoover invoking Lincoln as a source for inspiration as he traveled the world making his fortune.
In fact, the first mention of the 16th president in the Hoover papers is a newspaper clipping from the St. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press dated Feb. 12, 1911. Entitled “The Faith of Lincoln,” the author noted that “we have come to believe that real human helpfulness has its inspiration in some spirit or power that is itself above that humanity, even at its best. No life among men so clearly demonstrates the truth of our belief than that of Abraham Lincoln.”

 

 

Why was this essay important to Hoover? We don’t know. He was living in London at the time the essay was published and giving serious thought to a life of public service. In some unknown way, the future humanitarian and president acquired this essay and the words must have resonated within him: Lincoln was an important model for anyone entering public service and the fact that Hoover saved the essay the rest of his life is probable evidence that he agreed with that assessment.

 

The first recorded statement of Lincoln’s influence on Hoover does not come until 1922. Samuel C. Reat, an American counsel in Canada, had written to the new Secretary of Commerce asking for a statement on Lincoln to be read at a Lincoln banquet in Alberta. Hoover responded: “To me, no phase of the life of Abraham Lincoln stands out in bolder relief for our emulation in this year of 1922 than his calm confidence in the ultimate triumph of the common sense of his people. Beset by darkest difficulties, surrounded by many who had lost their courage, by others distrustful and intriguing against him, Lincoln, with a simple directness of action, drove steadily forward sustained by this unfaltering faith.”

 

In many ways, this simple assessment of Lincoln as the calm within a storm was the model that Hoover would use for his presidency, alas with very different results. Hoover would not speak again of Lincoln until 1924 when he repeated his 1922 statement almost word for word in a magazine entitled The National Republican. 

 

This did not mean that Hoover had issued his last word on Lincoln. Far from it. On Feb. 12, 1925, in a speech before the Baltimore Real Estate Board, Hoover shared additional thoughts on Lincoln’s importance to him and to the nation.

 

“His was a faith in the fundamental obligation of society to insure not only every possible opportunity for even the humblest person to achieve position and independence, but also the obligation of society as a whole for common action in the upbuilding of the entire community,” Hoover said.

 

In a later passage, Hoover seems to trace the origin of his own ideas on American individualism to Lincoln: “National character cannot be built by law,” he said. “It is the sum of the moral fiber of its individuals.” Hoover implied, but does not state, that Lincoln shared this belief.

 

Over the next three years, Hoover returned again and again to these same ideas when speaking of Lincoln. In fact, as was Hoover’s habit, he would repeat many of the same phrases word for word in his periodic Lincoln Day remarks to honor the 16th president’s birth on Feb. 12, 1809. In 1926, for example, Hoover delivered such remarks in a national radio broadcast and the following year he prepared a boilerplate statement on the greatness of Lincoln. Both the speech and the statement reprise his comments from 1922.

 

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