Hoover Library secures $400,000 grant for renovation

The Iowa Economic Development Authority Board approved a $400,000 grant for the Herbert Hoover Presidential Foundation on March 21, funding that is set to help improve a local library and museum.

The grant will contribute to renovations ongoing at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum. The $20.3 million project is being raised entirely by the Hoover Presidential Foundation with the hope that the renovations can help modernize the museum.

In an email to The Daily Iowan, Thomas Schwartz, the director of the museum, wrote that the last museum renovation was in 1992 — over three decades ago. Schwartz also wrote that more research has emerged on the lives of Herbert and Lou Hoover, and new museum technology has been developed over the decades to allow for more engaging storytelling techniques, like interactive touch screens.

The president and CEO of the Hoover Presidential Foundation Mundi McCarty said the entire museum will be modernized, from the entry space to all of the exhibits, with the new renovation.

The updated technologies include interactive touch screens and immersive projectors to ground visitors into the life of Herbert Hoover, she said.

“One of the neatest pieces of the museum will be one of the final galleries, where we talk about Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover’s legacy,” McCarty said. “They had an impact on Iowans … but also around the globe with the humanitarian work that they did.”

The final stages of the remodel will display how Hoover’s legacy still lives through the Uncommon Students and Legislatures awards, a title given to those who embody public service, leadership, or humanitarian efforts.

The renovations started in mid-January and will last until the summer of 2026, McCarty said.

McCarty reminds visitors that while the museum is closed, it is still surrounded by the open, 186-acre Herbert Hoover National Historic Site, which includes four historic buildings, the burial site of Henry and Lou Hoover, and an 86-acre restored prairie.

The foundation also plans to take the content of the museum “on the road,” displaying it across the state at county fairs and festivals.

While the museum is managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, the surrounding historic site is managed by the National Parks Service, or NPS, which recently faced approximately 1,000 layoffs in February.

“All of these federal entities here that we work with are being impacted at some level so far,” McCarty said. “We very much want to see both [NPS sites] open and operating and welcoming the public. And we certainly are supporting them currently in any way we can.”

Mark Ritchie, who was the secretary of state of Minnesota from 2007 to 2015, is an avid fan of Hoover’s humanitarian legacy and the museum.

He recalls how 10 years ago, during his time as the Secretary of State, he attended a reception for the Belgium ambassador to the U.S.

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The ambassador educated Ritchie on Hoover’s role in feeding the Belgian people during World War I. Hoover had served as the chairman of the Commission for Relief in Belgium, or CRB, coordinating large-scale food shipments to Belgium, which was occupied by Germany and facing severe food shortages.

“At that moment, I realized I needed to get down to the Hoover library and find out more about this,” Ritchie said.

It was from there that Ritchie began to talk with archivists and staff at the museum to get a better picture of Hoover’s impact on world history.

Over the past 10 years, Ritchie has been reviewing documents and books at the museum to present Hoover’s humanitarian legacy to the public, even writing a short play, “This I Can Promise,” highlighting Hoover’s efforts to feed the people of Belgium in World War I.

As for the renovations, Ritchie hopes new technologies like artificial intelligence can be integrated into the experience to allow visitors to have a dialogue with the historical figures in the exhibit.

Ritchie also hopes his personal identity can be given greater attention in the remodel.

“[Hoover’s] grandson said he had done three big things in life, and all three of them had been with Quakers,” he said. “Being a Quaker and being an orphan impacted a lot of things about [Hoover’s] life, and those could be elevated so that people going through could see also those pieces of him.”

McCarty emphasized that the work Herbert and Lou Hoover did throughout their lives is still relevant, despite the fact that the two would have been 151 years old today.

“To be able to continue their legacy through their stories and a more modern version of the experience to get to know them is really, really important to all of us at the foundation,” she said.