Old Radio

No one ever accused Eleanor Roosevelt of messing around, doing things halfway.  When her husband, Franklin Delano Roosevelt assumed office to try to medicate the Great Depression , Eleanor set herself upon the task of expanding the role of the First Lady. She did things first ladies hadn't done before: she put together her own staff, wrote magazines, and began holding her own press conferences.  This last involved a stinging dart into the state of gender relations, since she rarely invited male journalists.  This was, of course, a protest against the under-representation of female correspondents at presidential press conferences. At the end of the dramatic and wildly-effective first term, Eleanor launched her own radio program, which, owing to a fondness for literalness, was named Mrs. Roosevelt's Own Program .  This twice-weekly dispatch was themed around women's issues and aired by NBC. Good for her, we say!  She was born on this day in 1884.

January 30: Happy Birthday, Franklin D. Roosevelt My fireside chats usually center why these new-fangled lighters are so hard to use, but our 32nd president had something else in mind with his. Since today commemorates the birth of FDR , let's take a look at his famous fireside chats. There were thirty-one in all, from 1933 to 1944. These fireside chats were radio addresses to a nation first in the grips of the Great Depression and then embroiled in World War II . The name was meant to suggest informality, casualness, all of us as equals with the president. The first was on March 12, 1933, and it dealt with the banking crisis and the country's economic travails. The second one outlined the New Deal Program, and others dealt with a 1936 drought, "the European War" (Sept. 3, 1939), the declaration of war with Japan (Dec. 9, 1941), the progress of the war (Feb. 23, 1942) and other topics, usually controversial, important, and timely. Not a lot of historian...