'The Fireside Chats' Summary

It cannot misrepresent or misquote. It is far-reaching and simultaneous in releasing messages given for transmission to the nation or for international consumption. 

— Stephen Early, Roosevelt's press secretary, on the value of radio 

Roosevelt believed that his administration's success depended upon a favorable dialogue with the electorate — possible only through methods of mass communication — and that this would allow him to take the initiative. The use of radio for direct appeals was perhaps the most important of Roosevelt's innovations in political communication. Roosevelt's opponents had control of most newspapers in the 1930s and press reports were under their control and involved their editorial commentary. Historian Betty Houchin Winfield says, "He and his advisers worried that newspapers' biases would affect the news columns and rightly so." Historian Douglas B. Craig says that Roosevelt "offered voters a chance to receive information unadulterated by newspaper proprietors' bias" through the new medium of radio.  

Roosevelt first used what would become known as fireside chats in 1929 as Governor of New York. Roosevelt was a Democrat facing a conservative Republican legislature, so during each legislative session he would occasionally address the residents of New York directly. His third gubernatorial address—April 3, 1929, on WGY radio—is cited by Roosevelt biographer Frank Freidel as being the first fireside chat. 

In these speeches, Roosevelt appealed to radio listeners for help getting his agenda passed. Letters poured in after each of these addresses, which helped pressure legislators to pass measures Roosevelt had proposed. 

As president, Roosevelt began making the informal addresses on March 12, 1933, eight days after his inauguration. He had spent his first week coping with a month-long epidemic of bank closings that was hurting families nationwide. He closed the entire American banking system on March 6. On March 9 Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act, which Roosevelt used to effectively create federal deposit insurance when the banks reopened. At 10 p.m. ET that Sunday night, on the eve of the end of the bank holiday, Roosevelt spoke to a radio audience of more than 60 million people, to tell them in clear language "what has been done in the last few days, why it was done, and what the next steps are going to be". 

The result, according to economic historian William L. Silber, was a "remarkable turnaround in the public's confidence...The contemporary press confirms that the public recognized the implicit guarantee and, as a result, believed that the reopened banks would be safe, as the President explained in his first Fireside Chat." Within two weeks people returned more than half of the cash they had been hoarding, and the first stock-trading day after the bank holiday marked the largest-ever one-day percentage price increase. 

The term "fireside chat" was inspired by a statement by Roosevelt's press secretary, Stephen Early, who said that the president liked to think of the audience as a few people seated around his fireside. Listeners were able to picture Roosevelt in his study, in front of the fireplace, and could imagine they were sitting beside him. The term was coined by CBS broadcast executive Harry C. Butcher of the network's Washington, D.C., office, in a press release before the address of May 7, 1933. The phrase has often been credited to CBS journalist Robert Trout, but he said he was simply the first to use the phrase on the air. The title was picked up by the press and public and later used by Roosevelt himself, becoming part of American folklore.