C-SPAN FIRST LADIES LOU HOOVER JUNE 16, 2014 SUSAN SWAIN, HOST: Lou and Herbert Hoover came to the White House as trained geologists and experienced world travelers who were successful in both the private and public sectors. But just months into Hoover's term, the market crashed. First Lady Lou Hoover used her office to advocate volunteerism and charity, but as the Great Depression deepened their one term ended amidst great public frustration. Good evening, and welcome to "First Ladies: Influence and Image.” Tonight, the story of Lou Henry Hoover, the Hoover administration in 1929 to 1933, and what an interesting life she had. Here to tell us about her years before the White House as we get started tonight is Annette Dunlap, historian, author, first ladies biographer, scholar at the Hoover Institution, and working on a biography on Lou Henry Hoover. What interested you enough to spend what's going to be several years of your life looking at this woman? ANNETTE DUNLAP, AUTHOR: Well, I got interested in her from talking with a friend of mine at the National First Ladies Library up in Canton, Ohio. And when I started looking at Lou, I realized that this was a woman whose story has not been fully told. There are so many layers to her, so many different activities that she has been involved in, and a legacy that she's left for women particularly even to today that I would like to see the rest of the people know about. SWAIN: Well, let's start with her growing up years. She was born in Waterloo, Iowa. And the tales I read is that her father really wanted a boy. DUNLAP: So they say. And so the name, Lou, which is not short for Louise or any other type of genuinely female name, and he did pretty much raise her as what we would call a tomboy. One of the earliest pictures of her with her father is of the two of them fishing in a stream. I know that you got a picture that we're going to show later of her carrying a rifle and on top of a burro. And a lot of her diary talks about just her joy at being able to hunt, fish, and be outdoors. SWAIN: And how did that translate into her grownup life? DUNLAP: Well, she stayed somebody who was totally fascinated with the outdoors through her entire life. Obviously, her decision to study geology at Stanford University was an outgrowth of that. And even as late as her 60s, we have material when she went on camping trips at the age of 63, 67, rode horseback into her campsites, and slept on the ground while her other camp mates, other women, slept in tents on pallets. SWAIN: And from a public policy perspective, she also spent much of her years encouraging other young women to incorporate the outdoors and physical activity into their lives, so it wasn't just for her. She saw a benefit for other young women, at a time when women really weren't doing this? DUNLAP: Well, there have started to be some interest in women being more physically active, but, yes, she really took it what we could call the next step. So there are two areas where she got involved with that. The first area is with the Girl Scouts, because that was an opportunity for her to promote a lot of outdoor activity, what we would today call camp craft or outdoor craft, such as camping, hiking, learning how to build a campfire, learning how to cook outdoors, enjoying the outdoors. And then the other part of what she was involved in was with the National Amateur Athletic Foundation, the women's division, to make sure that sports and physical activity for women were appropriate to women, not just something for men that women did. SWAIN: So we hope you've been following along with us on this series and you know that what makes it really interesting are your questions. You can do that many ways. Our phone numbers will be on the screen throughout the program, so you can dial in with a question. You can also tweet us @firstladies, and we'll work as many tweets as we can into the program. And we have a Facebook conversation going on, C-SPAN's Facebook page. You'll see the Lou Henry Hoover photograph, and there's already a conversation going underneath that photo, and we'll work in some of those comments, as well. So please join in the conversation tonight. Much to learn about this very interesting woman. So how did she get from Iowa to California? California was so important in the woman she became. DUNLAP: Yes. Her father was in banking, and he was a banker -- started out as a clerk at a bank in Waterloo. And, of course, you know, this is in the days before you have the Federal Reserve or federal deposit insurance, and so banks didn't necessarily succeed. They kind of went up and down with the economy and with farm economies. So her father, Charles, was looking for other opportunities, and he was given the opportunity to come and start a bank in Whittier, California, which at the time that they moved, which was in the early -- it was 1887, they were building a brand- new community. It had been founded by the Quakers, but they said they were open to any fair-minded people of any religion. SWAIN: And here's the connection of sorts among the presidents. Whittier, California, that Quaker community just being established in California, many years later would be the home birthplace of Richard Nixon, who also was a Quaker, so there's a connection of sorts in the biographies of these two first families. We have a video to show you about Lou Henry Hoover's early years, and then we'll be back and talk more about her life. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MARCUS ECKHARDT, HERBERT HOOVER PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM CURATOR: Her father had always wanted a boy, and which is why we think the name "Lou" -- it's not short for anything. It is actually Lou. And as a result of that, he takes her out, just like, you know, she becomes a tomboy of the era, but she's out learning how to shoot, how to fish, how to go camping. They're up in the mountains a lot. She is learning about the outdoors and loving it. This is a 1914 .22 rifle, which was owned by Lou. What I love about that, then, is you had this photograph. It's an early photograph, but of her on top of this mule looking pretty rough and tough there with a bunch of provisions, but then she's got this gun right there that she's holding, very Annie Oakley to me, which is that type of era, that type of independent girl. One of Lou's most famous essays is probably "Independent Girl," and it was written on January 31st of 1890, but what's interesting about it is that the first last line of this is -- she's talking about, you know, being independent and someone who will, you know, do her own thing, but at the end, sooner or later, she will meet a spirit equally as independent as her own and then there is a clash of arms ending in mortal combat, or they unite forces with combined strength to go forth to meet the world. And I think she meets that person with Herbert Hoover. But this is Lou's diary from 1891 to 1892. And she's at college talking about different classes that she takes, so she's just talking about her life. And one of the things she talks about a lot is her botany classes and going out hiking, because she really likes to be in the outdoors. And so she refers here, you know, Ms. Palmer and I were a good match for climbing. We beat the others all to pieces. We found lots of flowers, lupins, primroses, forget-me-nots, et cetera, lizards and frogs, and so all these things that are just a lot of fun to be outside in the world. So as a part of that class, they're also drawing sketches of flowers and things like that. Now, this is Lou's sketchbook, one of her student -- and so there's flowers and butterflies, different kinds of things, and they had the Latin name with him, as well, which would be something that she would have been learning with her -- from her class. So Lou doesn't write about herself necessarily, but she writes about her experiences of her life. And so she's a highly educated woman at this time period. Her parents created a -- both her mom and dad created a very loose, open, here you go, if you want to learn something, we'll encourage that, and we'll allow you to do that, and she was able to do that, and explore that as fully as she could. (END VIDEO CLIP) SWAIN: We were commenting as we were watching the photographs about how full of life just comes through in these still photographs all these years later. And you said everyone you looked at, she seems to be smiling. DUNLAP: Uh-huh, yes. SWAIN: And her decision to study geology and to go to Stanford, Warren Bingham on Twitter writes, "Lou Hoover, one of America's first ladies, earned a degree in geology from Stanford" -- here's his pun -- "a different, if not rocky path for women in her days.” How unusual was it for a woman in the United States in the late 1890s to study geology? DUNLAP: Well, it was very, very unusual.