Fireside comfort

Sarah Vowell was on The Daily Show the other night and gave an excellent interview:



She mentions that she has recently started listening to FDR's fireside chats for comfort and reassurance in a time of national economic crisis that she's not otherwise receiving. I got curious and went poking around; you can find the fireside chats (and many other cool presidential speeches) here, and here is the first fireside chat from March 12, 1933.

I also found the earliest extant recorded voice of an American president (there was reportedly an older recording of Rutherford B. Hayes, which is now lost). It's Benjamin Harrison's inaugural address from 44 years earlier; March 4, 1889: