Digital Collections

The digital collections of the Library of Congress contain a wide variety of primary source materials associated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, including manuscripts, broadsides, government documents, images, newspaper articles, and sound recordings.

Freedom’s Fortress: The Library of Congress, 1939 to 1953

Freedom’s Fortress: The Library of Congress, 1939 to 1953
This collection presents a window into the history of the Library of Congress from 1939 to 1953. During this time the Library underwent a myriad of changes that established the institution as one of America's foremost citadels of intellectual freedom. Included in this collection are fourteen letters to or from Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Historic Newspapers

Chronicling America
Historic American newspapers selected and contributed by state partners in the National Digital Newspaper Program. Search this collection to find newspaper articles about Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Selected articles from this collection:

Printed Ephemera

Printed Ephemera: Three Centuries of Broadsides and Other Printed Ephemera
The Printed Ephemera collection comprises 28,000 primary source items dating from the seventeenth century to the present and encompasses key events and eras in American history.

Selected highlights from this collection:

Sound Recordings

After the Day of Infamy: "Man-on-the-Street" Interviews Following the Attack on Pearl Harbor
This collection presents approximately twelve hours of opinions recorded in the days and months following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, including a series of interviews called "Dear Mr. President," which were recorded in January and February 1942.
American English Dialect Recordings: The Center for Applied Linguistics Collection
This collection contains 118 hours of recordings documenting North American English dialects, including an audio recording and a transcript of Franklin D. Roosevelt's Joint Address to Congress asking that a state of war be declared between the United States and Japan (December 8, 1941).
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I
The Nation's Forum Collection consists of fifty-nine sound recordings of speeches by American leaders from 1918-20. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding World War I and the subsequent presidential election of 1920. This collection contains a speech delivered by Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1920 concerning World War I and its aftermath.

Words and Deeds in American History

Letter, Franklin D. Roosevelt to J. Robert Oppenheimer thanking the physicist and his colleagues for their ongoing secret atomic research, 29 June 1943.
In the midst of World War II when the United States was engaged abroad in a major conflict with Germany and Japan, it was also working furiously at home toward the completion of the Manhattan Project. This huge research and development project was begun in June 1942 to develop a superexplosive weapon based on the nuclear fission process. It was hoped that such a superweapon would end the war. Two years before such an experimental atomic bomb was detonated successfully near Alamogordo, New Mexico, President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) wrote to J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967), the scientist in charge of its development. In this otherwise oblique note of confidence and appreciation, Roosevelt's understanding of the project's significance is made perfectly clear, and he ends his letter with an upbeat morale- booster, suggesting that American science is up to anything the enemy can offer.
Letter, Eleanor Roosevelt to Walter White detailing the First Lady's lobbying efforts for federal action against lynchings, 19 March 1936.
Lynching was undoubtedly the most terrible crime perpetrated by white supremacists against African Americans. From the late nineteenth century through the World War I years, hundreds of blacks were lynched in the South for a variety of alleged crimes, the most heinous of which was the rape of white women. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and other civil rights organizations tried unsuccessfully for many years to get a federal antilynching law passed. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962) and Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes (1874-1952), a one-time president of the NAACP's Chicago chapter, were supportive of the organization's efforts, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) did not share their enthusiasm and believed that pressing for the NAACP's demands would endanger congressional support for his New Deal programs. In her March 1936 letter to Walter Francis White (1893-1955), who served as NAACP executive secretary (later director) from 1931 to 1955, Mrs. Roosevelt stated some of the arguments that were used by the president and others against passage of an antilynching bill. It is clear from this "personal and confidential" letter that Mrs. Roosevelt was searching for a tactful means for aiding the anti-lynching cause herself, and she suggested to White various methods for winning the goodwill of members of Congress.

Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Resource Guide

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