Hoover blanket

English

Etymology

Herbert Hoover, US president at the start of the Great Depression, + blanket.

Noun

Hoover blanket (plural Hoover blankets)

1. (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."