1st draft of FDR’s ‘Day of Infamy’ speech on display in NY
HYDE PARK, N.Y. — Seventy-five years after he dictated what would become one of the most famous speeches ever delivered by an American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt’s first draft of his “Day of Infamy” speech is on display at his former upstate New York estate-turned-museum.
The exhibit titled “Day of Infamy: 24 Hours that Changed History” is on display at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park through Dec. 31.
The exhibit includes a rare public display of Roosevelt’s first draft of the speech he dictated to his secretary in the hours after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
The document shows FDR’s own handwritten editing of his words, including where he scratched out “world history” and wrote “infamy” in the opening sentence.
The first draft is rarely displayed in order to protect its condition.