Dictionary

Hoover blanket en · NOUN

Etymology

From Hoover (“Herbert Hoover, US president at the start of the Great Depression”) + blanket.

Meanings

1. (US, dated, historical) Old newspaper or cardboard, used by a homeless person to cover themselves for warmth, especially during the Great Depression.
   • Poverty became a way of life for 40 million Americans as laid off workers roamed the streets sleeping under Hoover 'blankets' - old newspapers. By 1933 the number of unemployed would mount to between 13 and 15 million […] 2006, Barbara Bennett Peterson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Preserver of Spirit and Hope, Nova Science Pub Incorporated
   • The newly unemployed stood in breadlines and slept on park benches under Hoover blankets made of newspaper. 2005, Rosemarie Ostler, Dewdroppers, Waldos, and Slackers: A Decade-by-Decade Guide to the Vanishing Vocabulary of the Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 47:
   • ... country—who were out of work, penniless, embarrassed, immobilized in sheer desperation, standing slumped, hollow-eyed, in long breadlines, begging or selling apples, sleeping under frayed overcoats or under Hoover blankets on streets ... 2012, Susan Dunn, Roosevelt's Purge, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 42:
   • People who spent the night on park benches covered by newspapers said they were sleeping under “Hoover blankets.” 2013, Walter F. LaFeber, Richard Polenberg, Nancy Woloch, The American Century, M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, page 150:
   • [Even witnessing people] hollow-eyed, in breadlines that stretched block after block, covering themselves at night with newspapers they called “Hoover blankets,” the president was stunningly unwilling to reach out to desperate Americans. 2013, Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election amid the Storm, Yale University Press, →ISBN:
   • Hoovervilles dotted the American landscape, men slept under newspapers or "Hoover blankets," and kept the money they did't have in turned-out pockets […] 2012, L.M. Sutter, Arlie Latham: A Baseball Biography of the Freshest Man on Earth, McFarland, →ISBN, page 231:
   • The shantytowns where homeless thousands dwelled were called Hoovervilles; newspapers used as blankets by men who were forced to sleep on park benches were Hoover blankets; a pocket turned inside out was a Hoover flag […] 1993, Joseph Robert Conlin, A survey of American history since 1865, →ISBN:
   • "Or living under a Hoover blanket in Central Park. A whole lot of folks there at night. Cold. Scary." "A Hoover blanket?" I was confused. He laughed. "Cardboard." 2018, Ed Ifkovic, Mood Indigo, Sourcebooks, Inc., →ISBN:

Forms

Relateds

Hoover flag · Hoover shoe · Hoover hog · Hoover wagon · Hooverville · Hoover bag

wikipedia: Herbert Hoover