Rugged Individualism

Rugged Individualism

US History/Napp Name: ______

Historical Context:

“Herbert Hoover (1874 – 1964) was educated as a mining engineer at Stanford University. After graduation, he began his working career at the bottom, as a miner. Over time he went on to become a successful mining entrepreneur. During World War I, he oversaw the United States Food Administration. In this agency, he headed a successful campaign to conserve food in the United States so that surpluses could be sent to embattled Great Britain, where food supplies were running low. In 1918, after the war, Hoover headed the American Relief Administration, an organization set up by President Woodrow Wilson to help rebuild war-torn Europe. Next, in 1921, he joined the Harding administration as Secretary of Commerce, a position he held through much of the 1920s.

Herbert Hoover was one of the best-known and most respected government officials when he won the Republican nomination for president in 1928. The public saw him as one of the chief architects of the prosperity of the 1920s.

As a self-made man, Hoover was a firm believer in the power of the individual to forge his or her own future. The speech from which the following excerpt was taken outlines Hoover’s belief in the ‘American system of rugged individualism.’ According to Hoover, this system consisted of self-government, freedom for the individual, and free enterprise. The excerpt previews Hoover’s policy as President in dealing with the Great Depression. It is from a campaign speech Hoover gave in New York City on October 22, 1928.”

~ U.S. History and Government Readings and Documents

Questions:

1-Identify two facts about Herbert Hoover’s education. ______

2-Where did Herbert Hoover begin his working career? ______

3-What did Herbert Hoover become over time? ______

4-What did Herbert Hoover do during the First World War? ______

5-What did Herbert Hoover do after the First World War? ______

6-What role did Herbert Hoover play in the Harding administration? ______

7-Define “a self-made man.” ______

8-What did Herbert Hoover believe about the individual? ______

9-What then is “rugged individualism”? ______

10-According to Hoover, what are components of the American system? ______

11-Identify two facts about the Great Depression [Previous Knowledge]. ______

12-Why do you think some individuals were critical of Herbert Hoover’s “rugged individualism” during the Great Depression? ______

Multiple-Choice Questions:

1-“You cannot extend the mastery of government over the daily working life of the people without, at the same time, making it the master of the people’s souls and thought.”

~ President Herbert Hoover

The idea expressed in the quotation is a basis for President Hoover’s belief that the problems of the Great Depression could best be solved by

(A)nationalizing major industries

(B)requiring business to pay a minimum wage to workers

(C)relying mostly on private enterprise and individual initiative to improve economic conditions

(D)creating government job programs for the unemployed

2-Speaker A: “The business of America is business, and we would be wise to remember that.”
Speaker B: “Government ownership of business is superior to private enterprise.”
Speaker C: “Strict government regulation of business practices is a means to insure the public good.”
Speaker D: “Only through personal effort can wealth and success be achieved.”
Which speaker best expresses the main idea of rugged individualism?

(A)Speaker A

(B)Speaker B

(C)Speaker C

(D)Speaker D

Primary Source:

Excerpt from 1928 Campaign Speech/Herbert Hoover
New York, NY, October 22, 1928
“During one hundred and fifty years we have built up a form of self-government and a social system which is peculiarly our own. It differs essentially from all others in the world…It is founded upon a particular conception of self-government in which decentralized local responsibility is the very base…It is founded upon the conception that only through ordered liberty, freedom, and equal opportunity to the individual will his initiative and enterprise spur on the march of progress. And in our insistence upon equality of opportunity has our system advanced beyond all the world.

During the war we necessarily turned to the government to solve every difficult economic problem. The government having absorbed every energy of our people…there was no other solution…However justified in time of war if continued in peace-time it would destroy not only our American system, but with it our progress and freedom.

When the War closed, the most vital of all issues both in our own country and throughout the world was whether governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution. We were challenged with a peace-time choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines – doctrines of paternalism and state socialism. The acceptance of these ideas would have meant the destruction of self-government through centralization of government. It would have meant the undermining of the individual initiative and enterprise through which have grown to unparalleled greatness.

…When the Republican Party came into full power, it went at once resolutely back to our fundamental conception of the state and the rights and responsibilities of the individual. Thereby it restored confidence and hope in the American people, it freed and stimulated enterprise, it restored the government to its position as an umpire instead of a player in the economic game. For these reasons, the American people have gone forward in progress while the rest of the world has halted, and some countries have even gone backwards. If anyone will study the causes of retarded recuperation [slow recovery from the war] in Europe, he will find much of it due to stifling of private initiative on one hand, and overloading of the government with business on the other.”

1- How did Herbert Hoover’s belief in the trait of rugged individualism affect his attitude toward the proper role of government? ______

2- Why does Hoover say that the U.S. system of government is the most advanced? ______

3- According to Hoover, why was government control over some industries needed during World War I? ______

4- What does Hoover predict will happen to private initiative if there is too much government during peacetime? ______

Analyze the following political cartoons:

Explain the meaning of the political cartoon.

______

Explain the meaning of the political cartoon. ______