Richard Parker
SLM 521
March 1, 2004
Sounds on the Web
In Montgomery County, sophomore English students go through a unit entitled Expressions. The unit asks students to investigate the qualities of a well-written and well-delivered speech and, ultimately, to write and present speeches of their own. We have always presented famous speeches in paper text and, when possible, used video or DVD when we could find a particular speech that had been so recorded. It would certainly be a worthwhile addition to the unit if we could put together a collection of websites where students could access audio of famous speeches so they could hear the speeches as they were originally presented. With this in mind, I went searching for sites that might support this kind of activity.
I am first indebted to a website belonging to Manatee Community College which offers a course in Fundamentals of Speech. This site, alone, contains a wealth of links to other sites which actually offer audio. Through this website, I was able to access archives of presidential speeches, speeches by Winston Churchill, Vaclav Havel and Nelson Mandela and Bill Cosby. Quite an eclectic list.
http://www.mccfl.edu/Faculty/Frith/SPC1600/resources.htm.
visited 28 February 2004.
The History Place: Great Speeches Collection is a very impressive archive of audio material of historically important speeches. Many of the speeches are not linked to audio (Abraham Lincoln, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and Susan B. Anthony preceded the ability to accurately record and preserve the spoken voice), but other speeches are linked. These include many political figures including Al Gore (his concession speech), George Bush (Sr.) and his announcement of war against Iraq and John Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech of 1963. An impressive list of available audio.
www.historyplace.com/speeches/previous.html.
visited 28 February 2004.
Better even than The History Place is History Channel.Com’s Speech Archives: “Hear the Words that Changed the World”. Here, the “A – E” offerings alone cover four pages. Hank Aaron addresses Congress, Vice-President Spiro Agnew denounces student political movements, Amelia Earhart speaks on the future of women in flying, and actor Tony Curtis discusses the advent of the arrival of the videocassette recorder. Definitely a huge, eclectic archive of speeches.
www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive.html.
visited 29 February 2004.
History and Politics Out Loud focuses in on speeches of a political nature. There catalog is not as broad as other sites, but HPOL does offer quite a number of speeches by particular individuals. One can access thirty-four speeches by Richard Nixon, for example. Lyndon Johnson can be heard delivering thirty different speeches while John F. Kennedy logs in nineteen speeches to his name. There are nineteen speakers total in HPOL’s archive.
visited 29 February 2004.
The Public Broadcasting System is always a great resource for things historical, and they come through royally with speech archives. Their site “Great American Speeches: 80 Years of Political Oratory features many speeches that are not available in audio (Booker T. Washington, for example, or the dedication of the Statue of Liberty, both in the 1880’s were not recorded for posterity), but many other speeches are available to hear. The speeches are arranged by decade. Franklin D. Roosevelt delivers his first inaugural address on video, so a student could both see and hear the President. Robert Kennedy speaks on the death of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jesse Jackson launches his campaign for the presidency in 1984. A very attractive and well-organized website.
www.pbs.org/greatspeeches/timeline/
visited 29 February 2004.
University of California, Berkeley has a very well organized site of “Online Audio Recordings: Historic Speeches”. All of the speeches here, as the site’s title suggests are readily available in Real Audio. The many speeches include FDR’s Fireside Chats and his declaration of war against Japan. Richard Nixon can be heard delivering his “Checkers Speech” and Martin Luther King presents “I Have A Dream”. The site is attractive and easy to navigate.
www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC/historicspeeches.html.
visited 28 February 2004
Wake Forest University also has a very useful page for tracking down audio of famous speeches. Although a student will not find the actual speeches here, he or she can find a multitude of links to websites organized as “Collections of Political Speeches,” “Audio Sites” (some with film), “Individual Presidential Sites,” “Convention Speaking,” “Political Debates,” “Miscellaneous Speech Collections.” A very handy first stop for any student trying to track down the text or audio of specific speeches.
www.wfu.edu/~louden/Political%20Communication/Class%20Information/SPEECH
visited 29 February 2004.
Webcorp Realaudio Page is an nice mix of photographs and links to famous speeches. Webcorp’s subtitle, “Of Rogues and Heroes – A RealAudio Gallery,” is an accurate description of the breadth of speakers covered here. Joseph McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Mayor Richard Daley, Spiro Agnew and Pat Buchanan (we’re hittin’ the rogues) are joined by the likes of Winston Churchill and President Eisenhower. The photographs which decorate the homepage gives students a glimpse at the individual speakers.
www.webcorp.com/realaudio/realaudio gallery.html.
visited 28 February 2004.
American Rhetoric offers links to “Top 100 Speeches”. These are full transcripts of speeches by such notables as Barbara Jordan, Elie Wiesel, Ronald Regan and Malcolm X. I am particularly impressed by this website’s diversity. Twenty-three of the speeches are delivered by women; twelve are delivered by African-Americans (three in the top ten). Of the one hundred speeches in the catalog, fifty-seven are available on audio.
www.americanrhetoric.com/newtop100speeches.htm
visited 29 February 2004.
“Great Speeches of the 20th Century”, a site constructed by Sophia Project Resources offers a concise list of important speeches with an invitation to “HEAR IT” beneath the description of each speech. The “usual suspects” populate this short list: FDR, Winston Churchill, John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Martin Luther King, Jr. A couple of surprises in Jesse Jackson and Mario Cuomo(both addressing the Democratic Convention in 1984). A short list, but attractively presented; all are linked to audio presentations.
www.molloy.edu/academic/philosophy/sophia/audio/speeches.htm
visited 28 February 2004.
All in all, these ten websites hold a lot of possibilities for the sophomore Expressions unit. Being able to hear and see famous speeches being delivered is, of course, a real asset to a unit like this. A couple of these websites do offer that possibility. While there are DVD’s of famous orators out there, they are limited and need to be purchased. These websites offer some of the same material at the click of a mouse. A good unit/lesson plan could make use of links to these sites. Students could study text and also analyze the vocal qualities and paralanguage of these speakers.