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Hoover blanket. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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Hoover blanket in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
Herbert Hoover, US president at the start of the Great Depression, + blanket.
Noun
Hoover blanket (plural Hoover blankets)
- (US, dated, especially during the Depression) Old newspaper or cardboard, used by a homeless person to cover themselves for warmth.
1993, Joseph Robert Conlin, A survey of American history since 1865, →ISBN: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 […]
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:The newly unemployed stood in breadlines and slept on park benches under Hoover blankets made of newspaper.
- 2006, Barbara Bennett Peterson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Preserver of Spirit and Hope, Nova Science Pub Incorporated:
- 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
2012, L.M. Sutter, Arlie Latham: A Baseball Biography of the Freshest Man on Earth, McFarland, →ISBN, page 231: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, Susan Dunn, Roosevelt's Purge, Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 42:... 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 ...
2013, Susan Dunn, 1940: FDR, Willkie, Lindbergh, Hitler—the Election amid the Storm, Yale University Press, →ISBN:[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, Walter F. LaFeber, Richard Polenberg, Nancy Woloch, The American Century, M.E. Sharpe, →ISBN, page 150:People who spent the night on park benches covered by newspapers said they were sleeping under “Hoover blankets.”
2018, Ed Ifkovic, Mood Indigo, Sourcebooks, Inc., →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."