This collection of 22 transcripts comprises approximately 6 hours of material recorded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt Sr. from 23 August 1940 through 8 November 1940. It includes the proceedings of 14 news conferences, the private exchanges that immediately preceded and followed those events, and various other conversations with Cabinet members, legislators, White House staffers, foreign officials, and private individuals. Each of these conversations took place in the Oval Office, which Roosevelt outfitted with a recording device in the summer of 1940.

This content is the latest addition to the Presidential Recordings Digital Edition (PRDE), the online portal for annotated transcripts of the White House tapes. Created by a team of scholars and researchers at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center, and published via our Rotunda Digital Imprint, these transcripts are presented in PRDE alongside the corresponding audio, enabling users to read and listen to these conversations simultaneously. PRDE is available via institutional subscription.