1933–1944
Roosevelt at the microphone
Roosevelt gave thirty of these talks between 1933 and 1944. He refused to call them speeches. He wrote for the ear and for one listener at a time, and he insisted on the word ‘you’. The early chats of 1933–1938 survive mostly as text; what you can hear here begins on 3 September 1939, the night Britain went to war, and runs to the summer of 1944. Listen to them in order and you hear a president talk a country out of isolation without ever quite saying so.
16 recordings · 1 broadcasters
Who carried it
3 September
1939
Archive recordings
10 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1939-09-03 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
26 May
1940
Archive recordings
31 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1940-05-26 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
29 December
1940
Archive recordings
36 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1940-12-29 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
11 September
1941
Archive recordings
28 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1941-09-11 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
9 December
1941
Archive recordings
27 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1941-12-09 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
23 February
1942
Archive recordings
36 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-02-23 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
28 April
1942
Archive recordings
32 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-04-28 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
7 September
1942
Archive recordings
27 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-09-07 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
12 October
1942
Archive recordings
28 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-10-12 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
2 May
1943
Archive recordings
22 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-05-02 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
28 July
1943
Archive recordings
29 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-07-28 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
8 September
1943
Archive recordings
11 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-09-08 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
24 December
1943
Archive recordings
26 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-12-24 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
11 January
1944
Archive recordings
29 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-01-11 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
5 June
1944
Archive recordings
16 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-06-05 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;
12 June
1944
Archive recordings
12 min
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-06-12 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive;