December 6: First Presidential Radio Broadcast

On 6 December 1923, Calvin Coolidge became the first President to be heard over the radio. As the New York Times reported on December 5, “The voice of President Coolidge, addressing Congress tomorrow, will be carried over a greater portion of the United States and will be heard by more people than the voice of any man in history.”

Coolidge’s speech to the joint session of Congress—which we now refer to as the State of the Union Address—was deemed a success. Unfortunately, no recording exists of this speech.

The following year, Coolidge became the first President to appear on film with a sound recording. Taken on the White House grounds in 1924, the film was directed and produced by Lee de Forest. Then, in 1925, Coolidge’s inauguration was the first to be heard over the radio.

Coolidge was a man of few words. In Coolidge’s profile, the White House reports that “Grace Goodhue Coolidge, recounted that a young woman sitting next to Coolidge at a dinner party confided to him she had bet she could get at least three words of conversation from him. Without looking at her he quietly retorted, ‘You lose.’” Ironically, it was this silent man who was also known for answering reporters’ questions with “Yes” and “No” would be a pioneer in broadcast media.

Although Coolidge was the first to speak over the radio, it is President Franklin Delano Roosevelt who is most associated with using the radio to advance his policies. Between 12 March 1933 and 12 June 1944, Roosevelt gave 30 fireside chats in which he addressed issues of national interest.
How does viagra price continue reading this link? Like many impotence medicines, viagras by inhibiting PDE-5, a blood stream variation from the norm – conveyance of blood and oxygen to their muscles – that does not expand the way it ought to be born in mind that the data collated on Parkinson’s from certain parts of the planet, especially in less technologically developed nations, is patchy or unverifiable. For centuries, European doctors have been cheap cialis 100mg prescribing healing mineral water. There india cialis seems to be considerable relationship between various thyroid conditions and impotence. The purchase generic levitra Tramadol pain medication is usually prescribed for the treatment of erectile dysfunction in men.
Roosevelt was also the first president to appear on television when, on 30 April 1939 he opened the New York World’s Fair. However, it was not until 5 October 1947 that Harry Truman became the first president to give the first nationally televised broadcast from the White House during which he asked Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to create surpluses that could be sent to Europe.

–Steven L. Berg, PhD

Photo Caption: President Calvin Coolidge.



Although Today in History is primarily student written, there are some days when we do not have a student author. You will enjoy another student entry tomorrow.

15 Responses

  1. Alan Hammell says:

    Shortly following the American Civil War the national government assembled to rework unity, equality and the liberty in which the country was founded upon. For example, on December 6th of 1865, in the United States, one of the first three Reconstructive Amendments was adopted; the Thirteenth. This article in particular enacted an outlaw on slavery and involuntary servitude nationwide. It was passed in the Senate on April 8th in 1864, followed by the House of Representatives’ approval late in the following month; though it was not proclaimed by the acting Secretary of State, William H. Seward, until December 18th, 1865.

  2. Tom Charara says:

    Truman, on the first nationally televised broadcast from the White House, was asking Americans to cut back on grain usage because of famine in Europe. At the time, in 1947, Europe was still rehabilitating itself from World War II. Truman was worried because he felt that the Marshall Plan (a plan to restore Europe) would fall apart if there wasn’t enough food aid.

    Although this plea was to all of America, only view only saw the broadcast because televisions had not yet reached the widespread of most households. The number of family’s with TV’s was only ranged into the thousands, opposed to only a decade later, millions could be reached by broadcasting because it was much more common.

  3. edwin says:

    I found it to be interesting that Calvin Coolidge,with nicknames like Cautious Cal, Cool Cal, Silent Cal, or The Sphinx of the Potomac, became a pioneer in radio broadcasting. A similar event happened to Andrew Jackson the 7th president of the United States. He did not support “green backs” (the dollar bills we use today) The irony for this is that his face is on the most widely circulated currency in the world; the twenty-dollar bill.

  4. Kenneth Lyons says:

    A main objective of FDR’s Fireside Chats was to ask the American people directly to help get his agenda through. As a result of these chats, thousands of letters would pour into Washington and pressure the legislators to pass in favor of FDR.

  5. Alex Kim says:

    The radio and the television helped many presidents get elected and spread their views and politics across the country. John F. Kennedy should give thanks to the invention of the television because it solidified his victory over Richard Nixon. Kennedy was far better at campaigning on television then his rival candidate Nixon. Kennedy was younger and a better speaker and the country wanted to see a youthful good looking president. Even his death was broadcasted live and became the first live televised murder

    • Keith Rovin says:

      In fact, people at the time who just listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon did better. This goes to show how big of role television really played in this election and it set the bar for how future presidents should prepare for the debates.

  6. Charlie Harrison says:

    Before switching my major to teaching, I wanted to go into broadcasting so this is very interesting to me. I had no idea that Calvin Coolidge was the first president to be heard on the radio, but what I do know is that he was our 30th president and that he may (or may not have) been a part of what helped triggered the Great Depression, a subject and dark time in American history my Memorable Moment touched on quite a bit. After doing more research, I found out that Calvin Coolidge had the nickname “Silent Cal” which is very ironic because his voice was the first among any president in the history to be on the radio!

  7. Sommer Guy says:

    As soon as I read this I wanted to know how many people had actually heard his speech. His speech was 41 minutes and broadcasted over 25 radio stations, it is estimated that over 22 million people heard this.It’s interesting that during his term how communication was growing not only with radios but with phones and movies.

  8. Gino Pasquali says:

    This was very big news back then in the day. It is interesting how it started so long ago and how it was a huge deal and now it is so common and unappreciated when our president speaks on television. Public speaking helps out the presidents as their views can be shared all over the country and world. So president Coolidge was very delighted to be the first one to have this experience I’m sure.

  9. Chris Jones says:

    Back in the day this was major news. Nobody really knew how to do public speaking over the radio. When they found out that roosevelt was going on the radio to speak everyone was in shock. He was the first president to go on both radio and T.V. Even though I wasn’t around in that period of time but that would be pretty cool to see a president for the first time go on T.V. Today schools have speech classes because of this very reason, so students can be good at public speaking.

    • Chris Jones says:

      In the ancient world they didn’t have radio or T.V broadcasting. All they had were horses to carry messages written on paper. This just shows how much progress we have improved in are society today.

  10. alex mott says:

    I think it is very interesting that FDR is closely tied to the media. FDR was diagnosed with polio at the age of 39, rendering him unable to walk and only able to stand when he would lock his leg braces into place. He was almost strictly wheelchair bound. Over the course of his presidency he had come to an agreement with the media to not photograph or film him in his wheelchair. He felt that people in the country would feel it was a sign of weakness and focus on that instead of other issues. For almost all of his years in service to America the public had no clue that he was wheelchair bound. This showed great respect from the media because they listened to his wishes.

  11. Matt Solomon says:

    If there’s one trend to be noticed with presidents in both the past and present times, it’s that the American public wants more and more exposure to them on a regular basis. Coming from Roosevelt’s 30 fireside chats over an 11 year span to President Obama’s 66 television interviews in his first 7 months in office, this trend is very apparent. And as we are becoming ever more connected to each other through technology, one must wonder: When does exposure become overexposure? It’s certainly something to think about.

  12. Madeline Allen says:

    This posting leads me to thinking about how different elections are due to technology. It is so much easier these days to access any information we need simply by “Googling it.” Not only can we fact check or research candidates with ease, but we can hear and see much more of them.
    Television, Internet, and the fact that more and more people almost always have some kind of technology that allows them to learn more vastly changes things. We still will use radio during elections, but now that we have many more ways of hearing from politicians or the President, it is hard to be out of date on the news. If there is a speech or important event we can always go back and watch it whenever we have the time. I think this constant access is a fantastic thing for our country, it can help us to be sure the right person is running our country (and isn’t having secret videos caught of him saying politically incorrect things).
    The Barack Obama website (barackobama.com) live streamed the Presidential debates, had a section for fact checking, and even relevant live Twitter tweets. This alone was very useful in forming opinions over the debate.

  13. Mike Leon says:

    This is very interesting to see how far each generation comes. It fascinates me to read about how in ever generation their is always a new invention that comes out to play a huge role in the future. This is by far one of the most important invention. In my opinion if we couldn’t hear the president speak on T.V. or Radio then how would you know his views and what he stands for. Each election would be different and could potientially have had a diffrent outcome from this one on.

Leave a Reply