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Broadcast museum to celebrate 'New Deal' speech (Chicago)

The time is right to make a little more history.

In about five months, the Museum of Broadcast Communications will host a public celebration of Franklin D. Roosevelt's historic "New Deal" speech at Chicago's 1932 Democratic convention.

On July 2, 75 years to the day after FDR took to the stage at the Chicago Stadium and issued a stirring "call to arms ... to restore America," actor Robert Vaughn ("The Man from U.N.C.L.E.") surrounded by bunting and period signs will re-create that speech to highlight the evening's festivities at the 3,900-seat Auditorium Theatre.

In the thunderous 47-minute address to the delegates and a national radio audience, Roosevelt promised the Depression-weary nation "bold leadership in distress relief" and "a new order of competence and of courage" as part of "a new deal for the American people."

The speech marked his first known use of the expression that came to symbolize America's economic recovery, according to Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum supervisory archivist Bob Clark.
Read entire article at Chicago Tribune