Communication Studies— Speeches & Quotations

Return to Subject List | All Titles | Department of Communication Studies


  Speeches

Dictionaries of Quotations

Collection of Speeches

  • American Rhetoric – Online Speech Bank "Index to and growing database of 5000+ full text, audio and video (streaming) versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events..." (Note the arrangement is alphabetical by first name.) Speeches by numerous American public figures.
  • Conversations with History: Institute of International Studies (UC Berkeley) Lively and unedited video interviews and printable transcripts, with distinguished men and women from all over the world. Includes over 300 diplomats, statesmen, stateswomen, soldiers, economists, political scientists, activists and artists. Click on "Interviews by Guest Name" for the alphabetical list.
  • CQ Historic Documents Series Online Edition Issued since 1972, each annual volume of which contains approximately 100 documents covering the most significant events of the year. The documents include presidential speeches, international agreements, Supreme Court decisions, U.S. governmental reports, scientific findings, and cultural discussions.
  • History and Politics Out Loud Searchable multimedia database documenting and delivering authoritative audio relevant to American history and politics. Website support includes Department of Political Science, Northwestern University Library, School of Communication, Office of the Provost, and Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. (Project Director: NU Professor Jerry Goldman) 
  • Landon Lecture Series on Public Issues Archive of audio, video, and text, from 1966 to the present, of three to five appearances on the Landon Lecture platform per academic year of speakers "drawn from the public arena of world-renowned politicians, journalists, cabinet members and other prominent figures involved in current public issues. Presidents Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan and George H. W. Bush have delivered Landon lectures." Most U.S., but also includes leaders from other countries.
  • OriginalSources In Their Own Words Significant publications of the U.S. government and its history including the Papers of the Presidents, the Federalist Papers, National Party Platforms, 1840-1996, 100 Key Documents of American History, quotes and speeches.
  • OYEZ Project OYEZ Project Multimedia database of information about the United States Supreme Court providing abstracts of all recent cases and selective abstracts for older cases, digital audio of the Oral Arguments in all recent cases either streamed or as MP3 downloads, several recordings of the announcement of the Court's opinion, and links to the written opinions of the court in all cases since 1791, through Justia. Contains access to more than 3000 hours of Supreme Court audio. Objective is to make accessible all audio from 1955 to the present. Before 1980, the audio collection is selective. The project will ultimately be a complete audio archive of the Court spanning from October 1995 to the present. (Principal Investigator: NU Professor Jerry Goldman)
  • Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States Currently "covers the published speeches and documents of Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton." Search "across all volumes at the initial screen or search within a volume. Basic searches are amplified by boolean and proximity searches. Results can be sorted by author, title, date, and frequency."
  • Quest for Peace: Interviews, 1983-1989 Collection of half-hour interviews with a wide range of historical and political actors, including Julian Bond, Shirley Chisholm, John Kenneth Galbraith, Condoleeza Rice, and Edward Teller, on the pursuit of peace in the nuclear age.  Digitized interviews continue to be added. Includes biographical information, written transcripts, and audio-video.
  • Speaker Videos: Kellogg School of Management From 2001 to the present, online videos with political leaders such as Barack Obama and Richard M. Daley as well as business figures such as Sam Zell and Carly Fiorina.
  • Speeches and Speechmakers Excellent gateway, from the University of Iowa, to collections on the web. Includes, for example, links to an archive of speeches by the African National Congress, speeches on human rights from the U.K., and the Social Activism Sound Recording Project (UC Berkeley).
  • Speeches & Video A large archive of speeches primarily by politicians, and sound clips of primarily political events, available via The History Channel.
  • Television News Archive (Vanderbilt University) Includes more than 30,000 individual network evening news broadcasts from the major U.S. national broadcast networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN, and more than 9,000 hours of special news-related programming including ABC's Nightline since 1989. See "Important Note" on front page of website (NU affiliates have free access).
  • UN Oral History Project Yale University’s United Nations Studies Program has undertaken an oral history study to preserve the recollections of those involved in international political developments in which the UN has played a role. This resource contains over 150 transcribed interviews with key players, from numerous countries, involved in major international events. The transcripts are divided into two groups: 1989-1991 and 1996-2002.
  • Vital Speeches of the Day Look for the "Business Source Premier" option among the multiple subscriptions offered by NU, because this is the most comprehensive with speeches dating back to 1934 (including speeches by Churchill, Hitler, Mussolini) to the present day (including Blair and Benedict XVI). Also contains speeches by academics and others on important topics.
  • Women's Speeches from Around the World – Gifts of Speech A good base of speeches by contemporary leaders in politics, literature, and other fields.

For further information, contact:

Stacey Devine
Assistant Head, Acquisitions and Rapid Cataloging
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
(847) 491-7584 
stacey-devine@northwestern.edu

Catherine Grove
Head of Acquisitions and Rapid Cataloging
Northwestern University Library
1970 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
(847) 491-4426
c-grove@northwestern.edu

Research Guides A-Z -> Directory of Subject Specialists

February 14, 2008