The Hoover Tower

Watching college football on television is one of our family’s favorite pastimes.  From our living room in Austin, Texas we enjoyed our favorite teams, Stanford Cardinal (my husband’s alma mater) and University of Texas Longhorns.  Sometimes during a Cardinal game, the camera would span across the Stanford, California skyline.  Many buildings were white with a red roof, beautiful Spanish style architecture.  In the middle of the campus stood a tall building with windows on the top.  The rest was solid white, no way to look out from inside.  I remember thinking how pretty it was.  Yet didn’t wonder further about its purpose on the campus.
 
A job opportunity for my husband led us to move to California and good fortune provided a home near the Stanford campus. As I learned my way around a new city, I began to wonder about the various buildings that illuminated the skyline.  Remembering the televised football scenes, I decided to learn about the Tower at Stanford.  Consulting the internet, I learned that the iconic building is part of the Hoover Institution, a world-renowned Library and Archives at home on the Stanford University campus.  Started by President Herbert Hoover in 1919, Hoover Institution has grown into a public policy research center while continuing its work preserving historical artifacts.  The Library & Archives “holds more than one million volumes and over six thousand archival collections documenting war, revolution, and peace in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (hoover.org/library-archives).” I was fascinated that such a large library existed outside of the Library of Congress in Washington, DC.
 
In addition to watching college football, another family pastime is studying history.  We also cherish friendships with people all over the world.  One long time friend was a missionary to Hungary for many years.  These thoughts guided me as I looked at the Hoover website to begin my own research project.  With just a few clicks, I was viewing photographs from a 2015 protest of their Presidents new World War 2 memorial.  A few minutes later, I discovered how to make an appointment for an in-house review of the writings of the Hungarian Ambassador to Switzerland from 1920 to 1945.  Reading Hoover's website was a more fascinating way to pass the time than streaming a television show in binge mode!
 
One distinctive feature of the Library & Archives is that it is open to the public (and not only for Stanford students and faculty).  I plan to visit soon to look at their collection of antique posters.  When my son (a History major) comes home from college for Christmas vacation, we will explore Hoover Tower during a long afternoon of reading, learning and wondering what else we can find in their wonderful collection.