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J. Edgar Hoover

1895–1972 · 77 years Tier I

The boy who beat a stutter by talking faster than anyone

Portrait of J. Edgar Hoover — Marion S. Trikosko — 1961-09-28 — Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

He was born on Seward Square on New Year's Day 1895, half a mile from the Library of Congress, and lived in Washington for every one of his 77 years. His father ran the printing division of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. His mother, Anna Marie Scheitlin, was the parent he was close to. He stuttered as a boy and cured it by teaching himself to speak fast, eventually fast enough that stenographers could not follow him. At Central High he sang in the choir and debated, arguing against votes for women and against abolishing the death penalty, and the school paper praised his cool, relentless logic. At 18 he took a messenger job in the library's orders department and learned to collate. The law degrees came at night.

Justice hired him in July 1917 at 990 dollars a year. By August 1919, aged 24, he ran the General Intelligence Division and built the card index behind the Palmer Raids, which put Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman on a ship that December. He was deputy head of the Bureau of Investigation by 1921, and on May 10, 1924 Calvin Coolidge made him its fifth director at 29, after Teapot Dome took down the man before him. The 48 years that followed belong to BriefHistory. This page keeps to what he was outside the office, and to what happened to the name.

Hoover never married. Clyde Tolson, whom he made his deputy, was described inside the Bureau as his alter ego: they worked together, dined together, holidayed together, and Hoover left him the entire estate. Tolson moved into the house, accepted the flag from the casket, and was buried a few yards away. What that was, the record does not settle. Anthony Summers called him bisexual with failed heterosexuality. Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox concluded he had known no sexual desire at all. The most lurid claims rest on single disputed sources. What is not in dispute is that the Bureau he ran gathered exactly this kind of material on other Americans and kept it.

He died of a heart attack at home on May 2, 1972. His body lay in state in the Capitol rotunda, an honor no civil servant had been given before, and Chief Justice Warren Burger delivered the eulogy. Then the files were opened, and the fight since has been over a building. Headquarters was named for him in 1973. A Republican congressman moved to strip the name within months of the opening, Howard Metzenbaum tried again in 1993, and on February 4, 1998 the Senate voted 62 to 36 to leave it up. Harry Reid, who sponsored that amendment, called the name a stain on the building. Hoover is buried in Congressional Cemetery, a few yards from Tolson.

Lifespan

15401700180019002030

J. Edgar Hoover's life against the full span of the corpus.

Notable works

General Intelligence Division company
The index of radicals he built inside the Justice Department at 24 1919
FBI Laboratory company
Planned after two visits to Wilfrid Derome's forensic lab in Montreal 1932
Persons in Hiding book
Published under his name 1938
Red Fascism in the United States Today article
The American Magazine, February 1947 1947
Masters of Deceit book
A bestselling account of communism in America 1958
A Study of Communism book
The sequel, written for classrooms 1962

Life in brief

with age at each point

1913 aged ~18 Takes a messenger job at the Library of Congress at 18 He later said it trained him in the value of collating material.
July 27, 1917 aged 22 Hired as a Justice Department clerk at 990 dollars a year
August 1919 aged 24 Put in charge of the General Intelligence Division at 24 The Palmer Raids followed within months.
May 10, 1924 aged 29 Coolidge appoints him director of the Bureau of Investigation at 29
June 30, 1935 aged 40 The Bureau is reorganized as the Federal Bureau of Investigation
1938 aged ~43 A birth certificate is finally filed for him, at 43 Two of his siblings had one from birth. His was never filed.
May 2, 1972 aged 77 Dies of a heart attack at home in Washington
1973 aged ~78 The new FBI headquarters is named for him
February 4, 1998 aged 103 The Senate votes 62 to 36 to keep his name on the building