The People and the President: America's Conversation With FDR

America's Conversation with FDR
For readers of The Greatest Generation, an extraordinary window on the '30s and '40s By the time FDR took his oath of office on March 4, 1933, Americans had been in the depths of the Great Depression for four years. One week later, the President gave the first of what would be thirty-one Fireside Chats.


MacArthur Award-winning historian Lawrence W. Levine and independent scholar Cornelia Levine have combed through the millions of letters that flooded the White House in response to the Chats. Grateful, infuriated, proud, scolding, the letters, collected here and combined with the Levines' vivid historical commentary, give testimony to an extraordinary time in our nation's past.


Encouraged by the President ("Tell me your troubles"), farmers, salesmen, housewives, new immigrants, and old Republicans all wrote, telling him about their lives and what they thought of his initiatives. Their words paint a remarkable picture of America, from the hardship of the Depression, to the promise of the New Deal, to the turmoil surrounding our nation's entry into World War II.


Praise for Lawrence W. Levine:

"One of our era's most original historians."
—Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

"A master of American history."
—Mike Davis, author of City of Quartz