American Rhetoric

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Dr. Michael Eidenmuller at the University of Texas – Tyler created the American Rhetoric website. The website maintains a database of over 5000 “full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events, and a declaration or two.”

The Speech Bank provides an alphabetical listing of the material found on the site. Each item contains a notation indicating if the full text, an audio recording or video is available. American Rhetoric also uses a Google search engine to query the entire database, including the full text.

The variety ranges from Bono’s “American Ireland Fund's Humanitarian Award Acceptance Address” to Harry S. Truman announcing Germany’s surrender to Mother Teresa accepting the Nobel Prize to Mia Hamm’s Soccer Hall of Fame speech. There is also a list of the 100 top speeches and a section dedicated to 9-11. My favorite is the link to speeches from the movies.