Political Science: Speeches

Collections of Speeches

This guide is designed to help you locate speeches delivered by politicians, historical figures, and other notable individuals. This guide includes resources, tools, and strategies for finding transcripts, audio, video, and context for speeches.

Before you begin

Identify the Speaker: Know the name of the individual whose speech you are looking for.
Set Time and Topic Parameters: Determine the approximate date and topic of the speech.
Consider the Format: Decide if you need a transcript, audio, or video.

Vital Speeches of the Day
Text of speeches given 1934-present on a wide range of political topics. Browse by year or search for topics.
American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank
The American Rhetoric Online Speech Bank is a comprehensive repository that features thousands of speeches from political leaders, public figures, and famous movie clips. It offers multiple formats for each speech, including text, audio, and video, making it a versatile resource for studying oratory and persuasion. The site also includes a searchable reference database of the top 100 speeches of all time.
C-SPAN Video Library
C-SPAN programs since 1987, covering Congressional proceedings. Many programs aired since 2003 have searchable text transcripts of the program’s closed captioning.
Presidential Speech Archive
Presents text, and audio where available, of Presidential speeches and addresses.
American Presidency Project
One of the most comprehensive collection of web resources on the American presidency, including documents, public papers, executive orders, addresses, press conferences, debates, election data, approval ratings, much more. Data topics include Relations with Congress / Popularity / Public Appearances / Growth of the Executive Branch / Presidential Selection / State of the Union and Inaugural Address Charts / Presidential Disability
American Leaders Speak: Recordings from World War I and the 1920 Election
Consists of 59 sound recordings of speeches by American leaders from 1918-1920. The speeches focus on issues and events surrounding WWI and the subsequent presidential election of 1920. Speakers include: Warren G. Harding, James Cox, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Samuel Gompers, Henry Cabot Lodge and John J. Pershing. Speeches range from one to five minutes.
Digital Collection of Mexican and Argentine Presidential Messages
Digital images of over 75,000 pages of presidential speeches from the early 19th century to the present from Mexico and Argentina.
Castro Speech Data Base
Includes speeches, interviews, etc., by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1996. All texts here are in English, but the site offers links to additional multilingual resources.
Middle East, 1916-2001: a Documentary Record
Government documents, transcripts of speeches by government leaders and UN resolutions. Arranged by year.
British Political Speech
The archive currently holds texts of speeches given by Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Liberal Democrat Party leaders going back to 1895.

United Nations Digital Library
The online catalog of UN documents and publications. The Digital Library includes UN documents, voting data, speeches, maps, and open access publications. The platform provides access to UN-produced materials in digital format and bibliographic records for print UN documents starting in 1979. System features include linked data between related documentation such as resolutions, meeting records and voting, and refining of searches by UN body, agency or type of document. (Summary from Dag Hammarkskjold Library)

Archives of Women's Political Communication
Speeches and political ads for more than 300 women candidates that are easily accessible through the online archives. All include a transcript of the text and many also feature video.
Speaking While Female Speech Bank
This collection of speeches "showcases women speakers across time and around the world, from antiquity to the present." Arranged by topic, with a keyword search option and an alphabetical index by speaker name.
Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the World,
The site (http://gos.sbc.edu) is currently down, but is captured in Internet Archive

Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) Daily Reports
1941-1996. Translations by U.S. government of international magazine, newspaper, and newswire stories, transcripts from speeches and radio and television. Scanned from print Daily Report issues covering areas such as China, East Asia, Latin America.
World News Connection
1994-2013. Translations and summaries by U.S. government of international magazine, newspaper, and newswire stories, transcripts from speeches and radio and television broadcasts, and nonclassified technical reports. Successor to FBIS.

Additional tips

Search for speeches in news databases (especially useful for older/historic speeches)
Search for videos of speeches on YouTube and other video sites. Copy or download the transcript if you need the text.

Political Science: Speeches

Collections of Speeches

Before you begin

Additional tips

Additional guides