Fireside Chats

Here's an archive of the fireside chats of FDR, and here's a very short article on why they were so effective:

In the midst of the Great Depression, America in 1933 was suffering. One-third of its work force was unemployed, every bank had been closed for eight days, and the public was barely surviving through a combination of barter and credit.

On Sunday evening, March 12, a troubled nation sat down by its radio sets to listen to their president. With his calm and reassuring voice, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt explained how the nation was going to recover from the current banking crisis.