Database Showcase: American Inaugurals

With the 2012 election behind us, I figured that now is the perfect time to highlight another database in the WCCLS collection.
American Inaugurals (accessed under the 'Law and Government' section) features a collection of inaugural addresses by presidents all the way back to George Washington. Mysteriously absent is George W. Bush's second address as well as Barack Obama's, but I'd imagine that those will be added with the next update. Provided alongside the addresses in HTML, PDF, E-Reader, and audio formats are brief histories of the presidents and timelines of notable events that took place during their terms in office. The database offers an excellent way for students to interact with the language of speeches and consider what they were trying to accomplish with the speech and if the words accurately portrayed the type of president that they would be. For more detailed histories of the presidents and their times, check the Biography in Context database, located under "Biographies & About" on the left side of the WCCLS Online Resources page.

The President Answers Questions From Youth

President Obama will be holding a televised Q&A "Youth Town Hall" with 250 American youth next Thursday, October 14th on MTV. He will take questions from the audience, as well as from Teens across the country via Twitter. Read more here!

Past Presidential Inauguration Addresses

Having listened to Barack Obama's inaugural address this morning, I got to thinking again about presidential rhetoric - how the speech is targeted to a specific time, the difference in diction, and previous speeches that the president is reaching to. Fortunately, The American Presidency Project from the University of California at Santa Barbara has a complete archive of inaugural addresses, not to mention State of the Union addresses, policy statements, and a complete archive of Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats. Sites like this can be an excellent way to engage students in presidential politics. They could compare and contrast the times and language of Obama's inaugural address with Lincoln's first, or look at FDR's depression-era radio addresses for similarities to the current economic crisis. Analyzing speeches delivered in troubled times versus prosperous ones helps students understand the nuances of speechcraft and presidential politics!