![]() ![]() Roosevelt was not actually sitting beside a fireplace when he delivered the speeches, but behind a microphone-covered desk in the White House. The topics he spoke about ranged from domestic issues such as the economic policies of the New Deal, drought and unemployment, to Europe’s battle with fascism and American military progress in Europe and in the Pacific during World War II. Seeing the potential of mass media to communicate directly and intimately with the public, Roosevelt would give around 30 total radio addresses from March 1933 to June 1944. In the general election, Roosevelt received some 23 million popular votes, compared with only 16 million for the Republican incumbent, Herbert Hoover.ĭuring the 1930s, well before the advent of television, some 90 percent of American households owned a radio. In 1928, he was elected governor of New York, and four years later he won the Democratic nomination for president. After being completely paralyzed for a period of time, he remained permanently confined to a wheelchair but did not give up his dreams of a political career. Roosevelt was stricken with polio in 1921. Millions of people found comfort and renewed confidence in these speeches, which became known as the “fireside chats.” Roosevelt’s First Hundred DaysĪs a rising young politician from New York, Franklin D. From March 1933 to June 1944, Roosevelt addressed the American people in some 30 speeches broadcast via radio, speaking on a variety of topics from banking to unemployment to fighting fascism in Europe. He would lead his nation through two of the greatest crises in its history-the Great Depression of the 1930s and World War II (1939-45)-and would exponentially expand the role of the federal government through his New Deal reform program and its legacy. ![]() Roosevelt, who took office in early 1933, would become the only president in American history to be elected to four consecutive terms. ![]()
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