Category Archives: FDR

NEW! Audio Narration of “The Great Depression” from the Free Open Educational Resource, “The American Yawp”

American HIstory, Audio narration, FDR, Politics, United States history

History Speaks again!  My audio narration of “The Great Depression,” chapter twenty-three from the blockbuster Open Resource textbook, The American Yawp, is now out. As an historian myself, I have enhanced this recording and narrative by Joseph Locke and Ben Wright with a few additions of my own, in keeping with the democratic principles of Open Educational Resources (OER), which this document is.  My contributions to this document, freely distributed as all OER are, are dedicated to the preservation of democracy in these United States, a dedication here that is mine and mine alone, not to be confused with the purposes of the authors of this textbook.  My hope and my contributions to this recording, including my edits and narration, represent a plea that all listeners vote for the Democratic nominee for President this November, to save our splendid Democracy. America… to thee, I sing.

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Deja Vu History: The Biden Oval Office Speech on Israel and Ukraine of 2023 and the FDR “Arsenal of Democracy” Speech of 1940

American HIstory, Audio narration, FDR, Holocaust, Western Civilization II, World War II

No one has caught the similarities between the Biden Oval Office Speech on Israel and Ukraine of 2023 and the FDR “Arsenal of Democracy” Speech of 1940, other than the use of the phrase “Arsenal of Democracy.” Yet the parallels are eery and uncanny.  They are also portentous for revealing the resonance of the world situations of 1940 and that of today.  Listen and learn how the Biden speech drew on two FDR speeches, one in 1940 and one in the wake of Pearl Harbor (no, not that one, not the “Day of Infamy” speech but one a few days later) and you will agree on the striking similarities. I hope you will also agree on the gravity of their meanings as discussed here.

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FDR Fireside Chat, December 9, 1941

FDR

In this classic Fireside Chat, FDR rallies the Nation two days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. One of his finest Fireside Chats, Roosevelt cleverly ties the mission to retaliate against Japan with the effort, not yet widely shared by Americans, to halt the march of fascism in Europe, represented by Hitler and Mussolini. The next day, December 10, Hitler would clear the way for FDR to accomplish this goal by suicidally declaring war on the United States.

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First Fireside Chat, The Banking Crisis, March 1933

FDR

Roosevelt’s first “fireside chat,” delivered just days after being sworn in as president, was one of his finest.  The entire banking system had collapsed prior to the speech. His task was to reassure Americans that their deposits were safe.  More important, he had to assure them that the government knew what it was doing in reorganizing and certifying the soundness of banks that were to reopen in days, so that the panic of the days before the shutdown of the banks would not be repeated.  Calling the closure a “bank holiday” was a delightful rhetorical slight of hand.  But the entire speech, and Roosevelt’s warm delivery (addressing “My Friends”) engendered a sense of confidence in his listeners that Hoover had been unable to engineer. The day the banks reopened, deposits exceeded withdrawals in all the major cities in the country. 

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