All Posts Tagged With: "Franklin D. Roosevelt"
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 8802
On June 25, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 8802. The order banned discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities in the government and defense industries. The order resulted in part from pressure placed on Roosevelt by the African American labor leader A. Philip Randolph. Earlier in 1941 Randolph had announced plans for a [...]
25Jun2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: National Industrial Recovery Act
On June 16, 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in response to the Great Depression, signed a bill that he saw as the linchpin of the New Deal program, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). This legislation was the boldest effort ever to coordinate the economy of the world’s greatest industrial power. The NIRA was an [...]
16Jun2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Lend-Lease Act
The Lend-Lease Act, passed in March 1941 after two months of vigorous public debate and signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 11, 1941, provided new legal authority for the president to offer war supplies to the country’s allies, thereby pushing the United States closer to full participation in World War II. Its enactment [...]
11Mar2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Executive Order 9066 authorizing internment camps for Japanese-Americans
Executive Order 9066, promulgated on February 19, 1942, was the first and most important document in a series of military and government directives in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on the United States Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. That order from President Franklin D. Roosevelt led directly to the [...]
19Feb2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Top 5 Inaugural Addresses: No. 4
Editor’s note: This week we are counting down the top five inaugural addresses in U.S. history. At number four is Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address. Below, the historian Carl Rollyson of Baruch College of the City University of New York explains the importance of Roosevelt’s address. Rollyson’s complete analysis of the document can be [...]
13Jan2009 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
Doc of the Day: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms Message to Congress
On January 6, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his Four Freedoms Message to Congress. In the address, Roosevelt made the case for American aid to Great Britain, which was battling for survival against Nazi Germany. He equated the Lend-Lease bill–which would allow Britain to borrow war materials from the United States with the understanding [...]
6Jan2009 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Barry Alfonso on the evolution of political oratory
With the inaugural address of the next president about to be delivered, I can’t help but reflect upon political oratory in general and the old fashioned kind in particular. I don’t mean the sort of folksy speeches Ronald Reagan used to give or even the reassuring talks Franklin D. Roosevelt soothed Depression-era America with. I [...]
29Dec2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Doc of the Day: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Pearl Harbor Speech
On December 8, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed both houses of Congress regarding the previous day’s attack by the Japanese air force on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor, on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. The attack devastated the U.S. Pacific Fleet in less than two hours. In his address to Congress, Roosevelt [...]
8Dec2008 | mdblogger | 1 comment | Continued
Doc of the Day: FDR's 1936 campaign address at Madison Square Garden
President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s October 31, 1936, campaign speech to a cheering audience in New York City’s Madison Square Garden culminated an aggressive campaign in which the Democratic incumbent drew enormous enthusiastic crowds. The substantive issue in the campaign was whether to continue to go forward with the New Deal reforms, particularly those adopted as [...]
31Oct2008 | mdblogger | 0 comments | Continued
Joan E. Cashin on LBJ and race
In August we observe the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965. The bill, one of the greatest achievements of LBJ’s term, is celebrated for making the suffrage a reality for millions of black voters.
Many people were surprised that Johnson turned out to be so progressive on the issue [...]
