With a Nation in Crisis, President Roosevelt Used Radio to Offer Words of Comfort
The New Technology Reached into the Homes and Hearts of the American People
One week after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the oath of office in 1933, he sat behind a radio microphone and thanked the American people for their “fortitude and good temper” as he tackled the economic woes of the Great Depression.[1]
Thousands of people responded by writing heartfelt letters to the president.
One man from New York described how he and his neighbors, both Democrats and Republicans, gathered around the radio to listen together to the first address on the banking crisis on March 12, 1933. Everyone was nervous, the man said, and no one knew what to expect from the new president.
“When your radio talk began,” the man wrote to Roosevelt, “everyone seemed to be become hypnotized, because there wasn’t a word spoken by anyone until you had finished and as if one voice were speaking all spoke in unison ‘We are saved.’”
It was the first of about 30 radio broadcasts, known as the fireside chats, in which Roosevelt laid out the details of his New Deal directly to the citizens while also giving hope to a population suffering a nearly 25 percent unemployment rate, homelessness, and hunger. When World War II began, he continued the chats to rally support for the war effort and comfort people’s fears.
The Medium Shaped the Message
In the decade following the first commercial radio broadcast in 1920, the technology of radio grew at a whirlwind pace. By 1933, more than 12 million Americans owned radio receivers, and there were nearly 600 stations nationwide.
Radio was a medium distinctly different from print media such as newspapers and magazines. The sound of a distant voice coming directly into one’s home felt personal. As media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously wrote in his book Understanding Media:
Radio affects most intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and the listener. That is the immediate aspect of radio. A private experience. The subliminal depths of radio are charged with the resonating echoes of tribal horns and antique drums. That is inherent in the very nature of this medium, with its power to turn the psyche and society into a single echo chamber.[2]
At the same time, radio in the 1930s was a communal experience. Families, and often friends and neighbors, gathered together around the radio receiver to listen together (sometimes out of necessity, since the sound could be weak). The radio broadcast extended the local community nationwide; there was something special about the knowledge that thousands of people were experiencing the same event simultaneously.[3] The fireside chats appealed to that communal feeling. In nearly every chat, FDR “asserted nonpartisan intentions” and attempted to build support and collaboration from all, including both parties in Congress, business owners, farmers, and citizens.[4]
Radio Rhetoric
Roosevelt was already a veteran broadcaster long before he started the fireside chats. Beginning in 1929, as governor of New York state, he made some 39 addresses on WGY in Schenectady, part of the nascent NBC radio network. He faced strong opposition from both the state legislature and the newspapers, and he felt he could tell his views without “distortion and criticism” by talking directly to the people.[5] Later, as president, he faced the same contentious relationship with the press and its corporate owners. The fireside chats were a way to circumvent the media filters.
In explaining the details of the New Deal and the crisis of war, Roosevelt managed a middle way between simplifying difficult details without talking down to his listeners. He illustrated his ideas with concrete examples as well as “stories and anecdotes to make the New Deal seem familiar and unthreatening.”[6]
But, Roosevelt didn’t simply give speeches; he purposely imitated the speaking style that was popular on the radio in the those days. His had a formal, cultured, East Coast accent, but for his radio broadcasts, he developed a “folksy” style using idioms and sometimes, humor. The result was a “paternal, colloquial broadcasting style [that] helped soothe a trouble nation’s fears.”[7]
Roosevelt’s use of personal pronouns was calculated to build support from his listeners. He frequently used the word “we,” not only to refer to himself and his administration, but also to include the audience as collaborators in the effort to rebuild the nation, and later, to defend the country during World War II. Statements such as “I want to tell you” and “Let me make clear to you” encouraged the audience to feel like the president was talking individually to each one of them. Roosevelt concluded his first chat in 1933 by telling his listeners, “It is your problem no less than it is mine. Together we cannot fail.” In this way, he gave listeners respect and agency; they felt empowered to help.
The Last Chat
Roosevelt gave his final fireside chat on June 12, 1944 as American troops were fighting the war on two fronts, in Europe and in the South Pacific. His main purpose was to encourage Americans to buy war bonds to help finance the troops. After updating listeners on the successes of recent military campaigns, he once again made the issue personal for American citizens. He said, “Americans have all worked together to make this day possible …. every one — every man or woman or child — who bought a War Bond helped — and helped mightily!”
Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 of a massive stroke. The nation grieved but the war effort was not over yet. His successor, Harry S Truman, would be left to guide Americans through victory in Europe and to make the fateful decision to drop nuclear bombs on Japan. Although he used radio addresses to some extent, his major announcements, such as announcing the end of fighting in Europe, were also filmed as newsreels. Later, Truman became the first president to give the State of the Union address via television.
Legacy
Several presidents have tried to continue the tradition of weekly talks to the people, changing their strategies as technology changed. Both Presidents Reagan and Clinton made weekly radio addresses, and George W. Bush did a podcast in both English and Spanish. President Barack delivered addresses on video via YouTube. President Trump made weekly addresses for the first nine months of his term, live streaming them and posting them on Facebook.
But no president since Roosevelt has been able to recapture the magic of the fireside chats, at a time when the new and hypnotic medium of radio connected with an innocent and eager audience.
[1] Text and recordings of most Fireside Chats are available at the FDR Library website. The chats were recorded by the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress. Some were also filmed.
[2] Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: Signet Books, 1966.
[3] Geoffrey Storm, “FDR and WGY: The Origins of the Fireside Chats.” History Cooperative. https://historycooperative.org/journal/fdr-and-wgy-the-origins-of-the-fireside-chats/
[4] Storm, “FDR and WGY.”
[5] Storm, “FDR and WGY.”
[6] Ryfe, 95.
[7] Storm, “FDR and WGY.”
