History as They Heard it on the Radio

Between 1933 and 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the American public 30 times over the radio. Whether he was reassuring them about the safety of their savings after a national bank closure or exhorting every man and woman to greater personal sacrifice for the war effort, the American people listened and took heed. As the first mass-media president, Roosevelt's "Fireside Chats" were a friendly fixture of the American living room, and the president himself was every average citizen's beloved father figure.

The Fireside Chats are collected here with other Roosevelt speeches, a timeline fitting these addresses into events of the day, and 30 historic photographs. Experience history as the American public heard it on the radio during those eventful and dramatic years of the Great Depression and the Second World War.