Today’s featured document from the National Archives is the first page of Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms Speech. On a quick visit to Our Documents I found the full text of FDR’s speech. To accompany the text of the speech, the National Archives has a feature called Powers of Persuasion. The Powers of Persuasion contains images of Norman Rockwell’s paintings that represent the ideals of FDR’s Four Freedoms. After looking at the text and images, on YouTube I found this video which contains the audio recording of Roosevelt’s speech.

Applications for Education
A potentially interesting activity to do with these resources is to have student read the transcript then develop their own images and or video representing the Four Freedoms. After the students have created their own images have them compare and contrast their work with that of Rockwell.

Here are some related items that may be of interest to you:
Howard Zinn’s A People’s History in a Free Digital Format
Watch American Experience Online
American Rhetoric – Famous Speeches from Politics and Entertainment