SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Let's go back now - way back - to March 12, 1933. The unemployment rate in the United States was 25%.
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FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT: My friends, I want to talk for a few minutes with the people of the United States about banking.
DETROW: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt got on the mic for the first of what became dozens of fireside chats. In honor of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, our series America in Pursuit explores culture, history and objects in American life. Next up, NPR's Clare Lombardo tells us about Roosevelt's microphone.
CLARE LOMBARDO, BYLINE: During his presidency, Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke directly to the country, introducing relief programs...
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ROOSEVELT: To provide a smashing answer for those cynical men who say that a democracy cannot be honest, cannot be efficient.
LOMBARDO: Telling Americans in 1939 about the war growing in Europe...
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ROOSEVELT: I have said not once but many times that I have seen war and that I hate war.
LOMBARDO: And later, after Pearl Harbor...
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ROOSEVELT: We are now in the midst of a war, not for conquest, not for vengeance, but for a world in which this nation and all that this nation represents will be safe for our children.
ANTHEA HARTIG: Even if you were very poor, you might, like, know someone with a radio or you might kind of huddle around.
LOMBARDO: Anthea Hartig is the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. The NBC microphone that Roosevelt used is in its collection. The RCA Type 50-A was saved for years by Carleton Smith, the NBC announcer who introduced every one of those fireside chats. He donated it to the museum himself.
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CARLETON SMITH: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States.
LOMBARDO: This summer, that microphone is at the Smithsonian Castle in Washington, D.C., in a special exhibit called American Aspirations. Clare Lombardo, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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