FDR Goes Digital

A special digitization project has been announced which will bring new life to the speeches of former president Franklin D. Roosevelt. According the Poughkeepsie Journal the project headed by the F.D.R Presidential Library and Museum and the Roosevelt Institute will  bring the president's Master Speech File and the FDR Speech Audio Recordings to the public. Acting director of the library and museum Robert Clark announced this week that recordings contains everything from reading copies o official as-delivered transcripts. It total the Journal reports about 41,000 pages of primary source documents will be added in the project which is a first it's kind.

"Roosevelt's use of the radio enabled and encouraged the citizens of this country to become active partners with the president in the great American enterprise," Clark tells the Poughkeepsie Journal.

The announcement came Monday in honor of the 71st anniversary of Roosevelt's signing of the GI Bill, one of the major pieces of post-World War II legislation. The site which is already live is called Franklin and can be accessed at www.fdrlibrary.marist.edu.