President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1939-09-03 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
← A Century on the Air
1933–1944
The Fireside Chats
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
CBS · NBC · Mutual (pool)16
Sunday, 3 September 1939
Sunday, 26 May 1940
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1940-05-26 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Sunday, 29 December 1940
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1940-12-29 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Thursday, 11 September 1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1941-09-11 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 9 December 1941
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1941-12-09 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 23 February 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-02-23 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 28 April 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-04-28 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 7 September 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-09-07 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 12 October 1942
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1942-10-12 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Sunday, 2 May 1943
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-05-02 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Wednesday, 28 July 1943
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-07-28 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Wednesday, 8 September 1943
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-09-08 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Friday, 24 December 1943
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1943-12-24 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 11 January 1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-01-11 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 5 June 1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-06-05 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 12 June 1944
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, broadcast 1944-06-12 and carried simultaneously by every American network. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.