"A good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader. A great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves." - Eleanor Roosevelt

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Eleanor Roosevelt is the most enduringly famous first lady in American history, and for good reason. She transformed what a first lady can be, criss-crossing the country to meet and listen to Americans in need and serve as their advocate in Washington D.C. But the woman we remember her as is not the woman she always was. David Michaelis,  author of New York Times bestseller Eleanor discusses how Eleanor rose from a "Dickensian childhood" to become the champion of millions.

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"In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
"The first is freedom of speech and expression ...
"The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way ...
"The third is freedom from want ...
"The fourth is freedom from fear." - Franklin Roosevelt, Jan. 6, 1941, State of the Union Address

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When FDR entered office, he had one overriding concern - to get the United States of America out of the Great Depression. But as the years advanced, as the economy improved, and as war spread across Asia and Europe, Roosevelt began to turn his focus to the international situation and the world he hoped to forge.  Christopher Nichols,  the Wayne Woodrow Hayes Chair in National Security Studies and a Professor of History at Ohio State University, and Liz Borgwardt, a historian, lawyer, and author, discuss their new book, Rethinking American Grand Strategy, and the stamp FDR put on it.

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"By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States ... I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War and the Military Commanders ... to prescribe military areas … from which any or all persons may be excluded," - Executive Order No. 9066, Feb. 12, 1942

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Two months after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order permitting the military to remove anyone it wanted from designated "military areas." By this authority, 120,000 Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and put in military prison camps for the duration of the war. Historical consultant Paul Sparrow, a former Director of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park, New York, discusses the arguments for and against this policy, why FDR implemented it, and what life was like for the tens of thousands of innocent civilians caught up in order 9066.

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"The president wants to come into your home and sit at your fireside for a little fireside chat," - Robert Trout of CBS News, introducing one of FDR's radio speeches.

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FDR is the longest-serving president in U.S. history, winning four consecutive terms. That doesn't happen without darn good PR. Historian Howard Holzer, director of the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City,  Chairman of the Lincoln Forum, and author of The presidents vs. the Press: The endless battle between the white house and the media, from the founding fathers to Fake News , joins me to discuss how FDR mastered the media of his day to become the most persuasive president in U.S. history.

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"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little," - Franklin Roosevelt, Jan. 20, 1937.

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FDR had one of the most privileged upbringings of any U.S. President. Why was he the one to enact the most radical social and economic reforms in U.S. history? Historian H.W. Brands discusses his Pulitzer Prize-finalist book, Traitor to His Class: The Privileged Life and Radical Presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the roles uncle Teddy, Polio, and the Great Depression played in making FDR a champion of the downtrodden. 

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"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them," - FDR on Bill of Rights Day, 1941.

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Every president's death is mourned differently. What do those differences tell us about the evolving culture of our nation? Historians Lindsay Chervinsky and Matthew Costello join me to discuss their new book Mourning the Presidents: Loss and Legacy in American Culture, with a deeper dive on the death of FDR 82 days into the start of his fourth term. Did anyone know how sick he was? Did his health impact the change at VP? And how did his death impact the nation?

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"I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people" - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, July 2, 1932, upon accepting the Democratic nomination for president

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Did the New Deal get the United States out of the Great Depression? Or was it World War II? Just how successful was the New Deal anyway? Eric Rauchway, a distinguished professor of history at UC Davis and the author of Why the New Deal Matters, Winter War: Hoover, Roosevelt, and the First Clash Over the New Deal, and The Money Makers: How Roosevelt and Keynes Ended the Depression, Defeated Fascism, and Secured a Prosperous Peace, discusses the legacy of the New Deal and the impact it had in lifting the United States from the Great Depression.

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"This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny." - Franklin Roosevelt

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When FDR was sworn in on March 4, 1933, the nation, and the world, were in dire straights. Nation's around the world had abandoned democracy for militaristic authoritarian solutions, and many Americans were tempted to join them. Radio priest Father Coughlin espoused an American fascism from the right, while Louisiana kingpin Huey Long flirted with a socialist form of dictatorial power on the left. As if to underscore the danger, a 32-year-old bricklayer attempted to assassinate Roosevelt a month before he was sworn in, narrowly missing in his attempt.

American democracy itself seemed to be in peril.

Follow along as FDR attempts to follow in the footsteps of his famous relative Theodore Roosevelt, learns humility and compassion from a bout of polio that left him paralyzed, reaches the presidency on a message of hope during the darkest days of the Great Depression, attempts to end the depression and save democracy with a transformative campaign of New Deal economic legislation, and then goes toe-to-toe with the evils of fascism in the greatest war in world history.

Bibliography
1. FDR – Jean Edward Smith
2. Hoover: An Extraordinary Life in Extraordinary Times - Kenneth Whyte
3. Truman – David McCullough
4. Eisenhower in War and Peace – Jean Edward Smith
5.  An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 – Robert Dallek
6.  Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream – Doris Kearns Goodwin
7.  T.R. the last Romantic – H.R. Brands
8. The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the World He Made – Patricia O’Toole

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"The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis," - Herbert Hoover, on the eve of the Great Depression, Oct. 25, 1929

What caused the Great Depression? Robert McElvaine, a professor of history at Millsaps College and the author of Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the “Forgotten Man” and The Great Depression: America, 1929-1941, argues the very factors that made the 1920's roar were the instruments of its destruction - mass production, easy credit, and an ads industry that told Americas, 'spend away today, don't worry about tomorrow.'

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"It simply comes to this: men hate me more after they work for me than before. They don't need think they are coming to a snap. They're coming to a perfect hell and I am the devil." - Herbert Hoover, 1897, written from the gold fields of Australia.

The United States had seen generals, publishers, history professors, and lawyers - oh so many lawyers - become president. But it had never had a businessman president before Herbert Hoover. David E. Hamilton, a history professor at the University of Kentucky, discusses how Hoover's background in business gave him the tools to handle some aspects of the presidency, but left him entirely unequipped to handle others.

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