Fireside Chats

The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio addresses delivered by United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944, in which he spoke directly to the American public in plain, accessible language about the banking crisis, New Deal recovery programs and, later, the Second World War, explaining his policies and countering what he saw as hostile newspaper coverage. The broadcasts marked a major shift in presidential communication, using the intimacy of radio to build a direct relationship between the president and ordinary listeners rather than working solely through the press. During the war years the chats reached an estimated 58 percent of radio listeners, and Roosevelt's December 9, 1941 address on the attack on Pearl Harbor drew a record audience rating with an estimated 62.1 million listeners. The series was later added to the National Recording Registry as an influential body of American radio broadcasting.