Theodore Roosevelt's accent

Where can I listen to it?

Hi Mister Micawber,

Try http://www.historychannel.com/broadband/home/

Could you be a little more specific? That place is a maze of pop-ups, and their search engine sucks.

Hi,

I agree, the site could be more user-friendly. But you can listen to Roosevelt simply by searching for him. There will be some 99 matches, all you have to do is to select one of them.

For some reason known only to ***, I searched for Ulysses S. Grant instead of Teddy Roosevelt. Maybe it was the facial hair.

I'll get back to you when I have a chance.

OK. I listened to Teddy's comments on the Square Deal. Now, what's your question? Oh yes-- his accent. He doesn't seem to have one, to my ears: quite American, in spite of the rhetorical tone of his speech, and centered somewhere between New York City and the Dakotas.

Hi Mr Micawber,

And thanks a lot for taking the time to listen to T. Roosevelt. However, I just noticed I was interested in Franklin D. Roosevelt's accent rather than T. Roosevelt's. I made the mistake so I don't expect anyone to listen to Franklin, but if you do, I'd very much like to hear what you think about his accent.

There is a certain style of speech that I call simply "early 20th century rich." He has a defiinte accent, particularly his R's. I can hear Katharine Hepburn (the actress) with almost the same accent. He was from New York (near where I was from) where there is little accent, but he sounds like he's from New England. He did go to school in Massachusetts, so perhaps that's why. But mostly, I think

Hi Grammar Geek,

Have you noticed that what you call an 'early 20th century rich'-accent has quite a lot in common with British English RP?

With the r's, yes. (But RP and other BrE accents seem to often put the accent on different syllables than even rich Americans - record is one word that comes to mind. And I think the vowels will always be quite distinct on either side of the Atlantic, won't they?) I wonder if all those rich Episcopalians sent their kids to private schools that taught them to talk that way. But I feel like I can do