Librarian
Speech Collections
To search for speeches at Penn State use The 'NEW' CAT (PSU library catalog) and the keywords "Speeches, addresses." You can also search by the name of the speaker, e.g. Martin Luther King, William Jennings Bryan, etc...
- American Orators Before Nineteen Hundred byCall #: PN4055.U5A4 1987 Arts & Humanities, Pattee, Stacks 2 - Reference Collection
- Representative American Speeches, 1937-1997 byCall #: PS668 .B3, Pattee Stacks 3
- World's Great Speeches 1999 byCall # PN6121.W66 1999. Pattee - Stacks 2A . Earlier editions have slightly different call numbers.
Recorded Speeches - Audio and Video
To locate recordings of speeches use the FORMAT attributes in The CAT. Limit your search to AUDIO or VIDEO. Use the keywords "Speeches, addresses" or search by the name of the speaker, e.g. Martin Luther King, William Jennings Bryan, etc... Many web sites provide audio and video clips from famous speeches. See the Web Resources section of this guide for places to start.
A Few General Collections to Try:
- Great American speeches. [videorecording] : 80 years of political oratory byBeginning with a 1912 speech by Theodore Roosevelt and ending with 1984 speeches by Mario Cuomo and Jesse Jackson, traces the history of visually recorded American oratory and discusses the evolution of how, through technology, politicians present themselves to the public. Includes commentary and film clips which place each speech in historical perspective
- Great Speeches Video SeriesLater 20th-Century political speeches, largely by Americans.
- Every tone a testimony [sound recording] : an African American aural history by2 sound discs (147 min.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
- Great speeches : today's womenmulti-volume set
Speeches by Women and People of Color
- Voices of Multicultural America: notable speeches delivered by African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native Americans, 1790-1995ISBN: 0810393786The speechs of more than 130 prominent Americans are gathered in this compilation, representing the leaders and others from four major ethnic groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native North Americans.
- Black Abolitionists Archive [Universityof Detroit Mercy]The Black Abolitionist Digital Archive is a collection of over 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period. These important documents provide a portrait of black involvement in the anti-slavery movement; scans of these documents are provided as images and PDF files.
- Gifts of Speech: Women's Speeches from Around the WorldSpeeches from 1848-2009. Site last updated 2017.
- Lift Every Voice: African-American OratoryISBN: 0817309063Containing more than 150 speeches, this anthology represents the most extensive and diverse collection of African American oratory of the 18th and 19th centuries ever published. Lift Every Voice makes readily accessible not only the classic orations of such well-known figures as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and Booker T. Washington but also dozens of lesser-known but important speeches deserving greater recognition and study. Many of these speeches are previously unpublished, uncollected, or long out of print.
- Outspoken Women byISBN: 084033298X
- Ripples of Hope byRipples of Hope brings together the most influential and important civil rights speeches from the entire range of American history-from the colonial period to the present. Gathered from the great speeches of the civil rights movement of African Americans, Asian Americans, gays, Hispanic Americans, and women, Ripples of Hope includes voices as diverse as Sister Souljah, Spark Matsui, and Harvey Milk, which, taken as a whole, constitute a unique chronicle of the modern civil rights movement.