American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, 1932-1945

The "New Deal era" is hard to define with precision - in time or in ideology. Some historians use New Deal to designate the intense period of domestic reform legislation of the first Franklin Delano Roosevelt administration, 1933-37. Others confine discussion of the era to the legislation of 1933, and identify another wave of legislation in 1935 as a Second New Deal. Most of the essays in this book focus on the prewar period, with glimpses forward to the rhetoric of the approach to and engagement in World War II. Among the essays included in the volume are: American Rhetoric in the New Deal Era, - Thomas W. Benson; No Ordinary Rhetorical President: FDR's Speechmaking and Leadership, 1933-1945, - Vanessa B. Beasley and Deborah Smith-Howell; FDR as Family Doctor: Medical Metaphors and the Role of Physician in the Fireside Chats, - Suzanne M. Daughton; Dictator, Savior, and the Return of Confidence: Text, Context, and Reception in FDR's First Inaugural Address, - Davis W. Houck and Mihaela Nocasian; FSA Photography and New Deal Visual Culture, - Cara Finnegan; Eleanor Roosevelt: Social Conscience for the New Deal, - Beth M. Waggenspack; The Rhetoric of Social Security and Conservative Backlash: Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor, - Ann J. Atkinson; Necessity or Nine Old Men: The Congressional Debate over Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1937 Court-Packing Plan, - Trevor Parry-Giles and Marouf Hasian Jr.; and The Thundering Voice of John L. Lewis, - Richard J. Jensen. It also includes: Father Charles E. Coughlin: Delivery, Style in Discourse, and Opinion Leadership, - Ronald H. Carpenter; Reconsidering the Demagoguery of Huey Long, - Robert S. Iltis; and Resisting the "Inevitability" of War: The Catholic Worker Movement and World War II, - Carol J. Jablonski.