Fireside Chat, The Breadline, and Appalachian Couple

Appalachian Couple and The Breadline

Photo: NPS / Kelsey Graczyk

Quick Facts

Amenities

4 listed

Audio Description, Braille, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Tactile Exhibit

Visitors entering Room Two are greeted by the inscription Second Term 1937-1941 carved into the pavement. Visitors will discover that Room Two is divided into two halves by a wall. There are two sculptures straight ahead on the wall in the first half. “Appalachian Couple” and “The Breadline”, both created by sculptor George Segal, clearly depict the troubling times faced by both urban and rural communities during the Depression and the Dust Bowl. To the right of both those works is a third sculpture, also by George Segal. “Fireside Chat”, set in an alcove, shows how FDR often communicated to the American people. It’s a reminder that his radio broadcasts were intended to inform Americans that his administration was working for them to solve the problems facing the nation.

Combating Economic Depression

Continuing to combat the Great Depression, President Roosevelt's New Deal created federal programs to stabilize the economy, provide relief, and create jobs for millions of Americans. Most Americans had never heard a president's voice before FDR began his radio broadcasts. His confident and plain-spoken "fireside chats" reassured Americans even as many New Deal programs failed, and the Great Depression dragged on. FDR easily won reelection to a second term in 1936. 

Roosevelt's administrations created over 75 new programs to fight the Great Depression. These sculptures represent 54 of the "alphabet soup" of New Deal programs. Explore this model (right) depicting some of these programs. If you carry a Social Security card, you participate in one of the lasting New Deal programs. 

New Deal Programs

Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.), Federal Communications Commission (F.C.C.), Federal Deposit Insurance Corps (F.D.I.C.), Federal Housing Administration (F.H.A.), National Labor Relations Board (N.L.R.B.), Social Security Board (S.S.B.), Tennessee Valley Authority (T.V.A.)

Memorial Quotes in Room Two 

"We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all our citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization." Greeting to the American Committee for Protection of Foreigh-born, January 9, 1940

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-Nourished. The test of our progress in 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." Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937

“I never forget that I live in a house owned by all the American people and that I have been given their trust.” "Fireside Chat" Radio Address, April 14, 1938

“It is time to extend planning to a wider field, in this instance comprehending in one great project many states directly concerned with the basin of one of our greatest rivers.” Message to Congress, April 10, 1933

"I propose to create a Civilian Conservation Corps to be used in simple work...More important, however, that the material gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work." Message to Congress, March 21, 1933