President Harry S. Truman delivered the first televised presidential address from the White House. First White House speech airs on TV, October 5, 1947

On this day in 1947, President Harry S. Truman delivered the first televised presidential address from the White House — to a limited audience. Television was still in its infancy: There were only about 44,000 TV sets in U.S. homes, concentrated in a few cities, compared with some 40 million radios. (Five days earlier saw the first telecast of a World Series game, pitting the New York Yankees against the Brooklyn Dodgers.)

Though Truman pioneered the now-familiar ritual of a White House telecast to the nation, he was not the first president to appear on television. President Franklin D. Roosevelt broadcast on a compact black-and-white screen from the New York World’s Fair on April 30, 1939.


But FDR’s remarks on the fair’s opening day were seen only on receivers at the fairgrounds and at Radio City Music Hall, in midtown Manhattan. The next day, TV sets went on sale to the public, as the Radio Corp. of America, NBC’s precursor, began broadcasting on a daily basis. Telecasts were then largely suspended for the duration of World War II.

In his speech, Truman called on Americans to conserve food to help hard-pressed Europeans, still recovering from the devastation caused by the war and threatened with a massive winter famine. He asked the agricultural industry and distillers to reduce grain use. He asked Americans to forgo eating meat on Tuesdays and eggs and poultry on Thursdays and to consume one fewer slice of bread every day. The food-saving initiative was short-lived, however, as the Marshall Plan spurred Western Europe’s economic revitalization.

All of Truman’s subsequent White House speeches, including his 1949 inaugural address, were televised. In 1948, Truman also became the first presidential candidate to air a paid political ad on TV.

SOURCE: “TRUMAN,” BY DAVID MCCULLOUGH (1993)