Milestone inaugural addresses
With Barack Obama’s inauguration less than 3 weeks away, we have decided to focus some attention this month on famous inaugural addresses in U.S. history. To that end, we’ve chosen 5 standouts from history and are featuring them both at MilestoneDocuments.com and in a new press release. These five addresses are a fascinating group, ranging from addresses by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson during the early U.S. republic, to Abraham Lincoln’s stark, unforgettable second inaugural in 1865, and to those by FDR and JFK in the 20th century. In December we ran a survey asking readers to vote on which of these 5 addresses was the most influential in U.S. history, and the results are interesting: Lincoln’s second inaugural and JFK’s inaugural tied for the most votes, followed by Washington’s first inaugural.
There is no doubt that expectations for Obama’s inaugural address are sky-high. Having established his reputation with a luminescent speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, and having built on his legacy as a gifted orator during the 2008 election campaign, Obama has set the bar high for his upcoming address. Whatever the result, I’m happy to report that the presidential historian Chester Pach–a valued contributor to our Milestone Documents series and the author of biographies of both Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan (forthcoming)–has agreed to write a complete analysis of Obama’s speech. This new analysis will be made available for free to all libraries that purchased Milestone Documents in American History, via the online Salem History database. In addition, we’ll offer it in an e-doc form on both MilestoneDocuments.com and on Amazon.com. Details will be forthcoming once the analysis is available in February or March.
I wonder how much, if at all, Obama will aim to bring his rhetoric down to earth in recognition of the economic crisis affecting the country. Or will he use the crisis as the opportunity to reach for the sky, oratorically speaking?