Herbert Hoover, Rugged Individualism

“Rugged individualism” gets thrown around like a simple definition of Herbert Hoover, but the real story is far stranger and far more useful. We start with the parts of Hoover’s life that don’t fit the usual caricature: an Iowa orphan who makes it into Stanford, becomes a brilliant mining engineer, builds a global career, and earns a reputation for competence by coordinating World War I food relief that helps prevent mass starvation. Then we dig into the 1928 rugged individualism speech itse...