1 year, 3 months ago
Why do people repeat that President Hoover was left handed when he clearly was not?
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M$1 Answer
You have to understand the cultural beliefs of the 18th and early 19th century about left-handedness. Using your left hand was considered "abnormal" and forcing children, even adults to use their right hand, even if they were naturally inclined to use their left, was not uncommon. This is still practiced today.
Whether this was the case for Hoover, I cannot speak to. However, Richard Norton Smith, scholar in residence at George Mason University, consultant for ABC News and once Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum claims that Hoover was left-handed.
This ABC article attributes that certain types of people think and use their left or right side of their body, including their brain, and exhibit certain characteristics accordingly. Smith claimed that Hoover "was an engineer and thought in very spatial terms. He was very rational, and his thinking was forever reduced to numerical formulas," supposedly a left-brained (and left-handed approach).
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4326568&page=3
Whether this was the case for Hoover, I cannot speak to. However, Richard Norton Smith, scholar in residence at George Mason University, consultant for ABC News and once Director of the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum claims that Hoover was left-handed.
This ABC article attributes that certain types of people think and use their left or right side of their body, including their brain, and exhibit certain characteristics accordingly. Smith claimed that Hoover "was an engineer and thought in very spatial terms. He was very rational, and his thinking was forever reduced to numerical formulas," supposedly a left-brained (and left-handed approach).
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4326568&page=3
images:
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M$
Yes, he is the guy who started the story. But it is just an interview with a journalist and he does not say why he believes this.
There are lots of photos that can be quickly googled which show that President Hoover signed with his right hand, cast with his fly fishing rod with his right hand, and threw out the baseball with his right hand.
http://www.treehugger.com/herbert-hoover-fishing.jpg
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3b30000/3b39000/3b39400/3b39465r.jpg
http://www.efootage.com/video-clip-images/1930/113457/President_Hoover_Throws_First_Ball_-_1930.jpg
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/prz_hh2.jpg
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2006/july26/gifs/hoover_hh_children.jpg
http://www.ecommcode2.com/hoover/research/photos/images/1938-38.gif
I don't know how you flipped the signing, but I don't think it will work for the baseball photos.
You have looked up the source of the claim, but most people just copy the lists that are passed around.