The Fireside Chats

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882 – 1945) was the 32nd President of the United States. He led his country and the world during a time of massive economic crisis and war. As the only American president elected to more than two terms (1933-1945), he was able to build up the support necessary to move the country forward, his temperament of both optimism and activism helped to revive the national spirit. Throughout his entire presidency, FDR gave a series of fireside chats, which were thirty evening radio addresses.

Roosevelt would urge listeners support his New Deal measures and to have faith in the banking system. These addresses were incredibly successful, not just as ways of getting legislation passed, but were massively popular in themselves, beating out other famous shows during radio's "Golden Age." FDR reassured the American people that the nation was going to recover and shared his hopes and plans for the country. The chats ranged from fifteen to forty-five minutes and interestingly, eighty percent of the words used were based on the 1000 most commonly used words in the English dictionary.