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President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his first “fireside chat” on this day in history, March 12, 1933, to reassure and inform a nation reeling from the effects of the Great Depression.
This was the first in a series of broadcasts in which FDR spoke plainly and directly to every American within the sound of his voice, as Fox News Digital previously reported.
The term “fireside chat” was coined by Harry Butcher of the CBS radio network, according to Britannica.
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When Roosevelt took office in early March 1933, the Great Depression had spread across the globe, according to History.com.
America’s economy had declined to “desperate levels,” with banks failing, industrial production grinding to a halt and over 13 million people unemployed, the same site notes.
In his first inaugural address, Roosevelt sought to impart a new sense of confidence to a nation in despair, declaring that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” notes the History site as well as other sources.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivers one of his “fireside chat” radio broadcasts in this 1930s photo. (Stock Montage/Getty Images)
Not a “distant or aloof leader speaking down to his subjects,” the president began his first “fireside chat” remarks with the salutation, “my friends,” and “proceeded to engage listeners on terms that made sense to them,” said the National Archives.
The site also says, “Those who might normally be tuning into programs such as the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra or ‘D.W. Griffith’s Hollywood’ sat rapt before their sets as the president spoke with them, not at them.”
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Roosevelt used a conversational, informal tone in his addresses, notes the presidential library.
To describe the banking crisis in his first “fireside chat,” he said, “What, then, happened during the last few days…
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