United States Presidential State of the Union Addresses, 1913-2008 (ICPSR 24301)

Principal Investigator(s): Janda, Kenneth, Northwestern University; Brunner, Ronald D. , University of Colorado

Summary: This data collection contains all State of the Union addresses from Woodrow Wilson in 1913 to George W. Bush in 2008. Article II, Section 3, of the United States Constitution states that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both House, or either of them . . ." That brief passage has provid... (more info)

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Janda, Kenneth, and Ronald D. Brunner. United States Presidential State of the Union Addresses, 1913-2008. ICPSR24301-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2008-12-24. doi:10.3886/ICPSR24301.v1

Persistent URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR24301.v1

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This survey was funded by:

• National Science Foundation (SES82-18813)

Summary:   This data collection contains all State of the Union addresses from Woodrow Wilson in 1913 to George W. Bush in 2008. Article II, Section 3, of the United States Constitution states that the president "shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both House, or either of them . . ." That brief passage has provided the authority for presidents to deliver annual reports to the United States Congress. From the beginning, these reports were known as "Annual Messages." In the first quarter of the twentieth century, they began to be called "State of the Union addresses." George Washington decided to deliver his messages as speeches before a joint session of Congress. His successor, Thomas Jefferson, chose to send written reports. All subsequent presidents sent written messages until, during his first term, Woodrow Wilson convened Congress in 1913 to hear his address. Wilson continued to deliver his addresses in person until 1919, when he became severely ill for the rest of his second term. President Harding resumed the speaking tradition. It remains today and accounts for calling these reports to Congress "addresses" rather than "messages".

Subject Terms:   Bush Administration (1989-1993), Bush Administration (George W., 2001-2009), Bush, George H.W., Bush, George W., Carter Administration (1977-1981), Carter, Jimmy, Clinton Administration (1993-2001), Clinton, Bill, Eisenhower Administration (1953-1961), Eisenhower, Dwight D., Ford Administration (1974-1977), Ford, Gerald, Harding Administration (1921-1923), Harding, Warren G., Hoover Administration (1929-1933), Hoover, Herbert, Johnson Administration (1963-1969), Johnson, Lyndon, Kennedy Administration (1961-1963), Kennedy, John F., Nixon Administration (1969-1974), Nixon, Richard, political speeches, presidents, Reagan Administration (1981-1989), Reagan, Ronald, Roosevelt Administration (1933-1945), Roosevelt, Franklin D., State of the Union Address, Truman Administration (1945-1953), Truman, Harry S., Wilson Administration (1913-1921), Wilson, Woodrow

Geographic Coverage:   United States

Time Period:  

• 1913--2008

Data Collection Notes:

All State of the Union addresses from 1945 to 1984 were recorded in machine-readable form for processing on a mainframe computer by Ronald D. Brunner of the University of Colorado. He supplied Kenneth Janda with his text files on a computer tape generated from the medium of punchcards, which were used then to enter information into a computer. Because early mainframe computers were designed to compute numbers, not to process written material, natural language text was typically recorded only in uppercase letters, which were simpler to encode, and a limited character set for punctuation. Kenneth Janda supervised the conversion of the speeches from all uppercase to conventional uppercase and lowercase letters, introducing "?" and ";" in the process. Addresses given after 1984 were scanned from news sources and later downloaded from the Internet. The addresses from Wilson to Roosevelt were scanned by Brian Oberhauser as an undergraduate and prepared for inclusion in this data collection.

Original ICPSR Release:  2008-12-24

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