DOI: 10.3886/icpsr24301
title: United States Presidential State of the Union Addresses, 1913-2008
title: Archival Version

description: 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".
description: Datasets: 
 
 DS0: Study-Level Files 
 DS1: Wilson, 1913 
 DS2: Wilson, 1914 
 DS3: Wilson, 1915 
 DS4: Wilson, 1916 
 DS5: Wilson, 1917 
 DS6: Wilson, 1918 
 DS7: Wilson, 1919 
 DS8: Harding, 1921 
 DS9: Harding, 1922 
 DS10: Coolidge, 1923 
 DS11: Coolidge, 1924 
 DS12: Coolidge, 1925 
 DS13: Coolidge, 1926 
 DS14: Coolidge, 1927 
 DS15: Coolidge, 1928 
 DS16: Hoover, 1929 
 DS17: Hoover, 1930 
 DS18: Hoover, 1931 
 DS19: Hoover, 1932 
 DS20: Roosevelt, 1934 
 DS21: Roosevelt, 1935 
 DS22: Roosevelt, 1936 
 DS23: Roosevelt, 1937 
 DS24: Roosevelt, 1938 
 DS25: Roosevelt, 1939 
 DS26: Roosevelt, 1940 
 DS27: Roosevelt, 1941 
 DS28: Roosevelt, 1942 
 DS29: Roosevelt, 1943 
 DS30: Roosevelt, 1944 
 DS31: Roosevelt, 1945 
 DS32: Truman, 1946 
 DS33: Truman, 1947 
 DS34: Truman, 1948 
 DS35: Truman, 1949 
 DS36: Truman, 1950 
 DS37: Truman, 1951 
 DS38: Truman, 1952 
 DS39: Eisenhower, 1953 
 DS40: Eisenhower, 1954 
 DS41: Eisenhower, 1955 
 DS42: Eisenhower, 1956 
 DS43: Eisenhower, 1957 
 DS44: Eisenhower, 1958 
 DS45: Eisenhower, 1959 
 DS46: Eisenhower, 1961 
 DS47: Kennedy, 1961 
 DS48: Kennedy, 1962 
 DS49: Kennedy, 1963 
 DS50: Johnson, 1964 
 DS51: Johnson, 1965 
 DS52: Johnson, 1966 
 DS53: Johnson, 1967 
 DS54: Johnson, 1968 
 DS55: Johnson, 1969 
 DS56: Nixon, 1970 
 DS57: Nixon, 1971 
 DS58: Nixon, 1972 
 DS59: Nixon, 1973 
 DS60: Nixon, 1974 
 DS61: Ford, 1975 
 DS62: Ford, 1976 
 DS63: Ford, 1977 
 DS64: Carter, 1978 
 DS65: Carter, 1979 
 DS66: Carter, 1980 
 DS67: Carter, 1981 
 DS68: Reagan, 1982 
 DS69: Reagan, 1983 
 DS70: Reagan, 1984 
 DS71: Reagan, 1985 
 DS72: Reagan, 1986 
 DS73: Reagan, 1987 
 DS74: Reagan, 1988 
 DS75: George H.W. Bush, 1990 
 DS76: George H.W. Bush, 1991 
 DS77: George H.W. Bush, 1992 
 DS78: Clinton, 1994 
 DS79: Clinton, 1995 
 DS80: Clinton, 1996 
 DS81: Clinton, 1997 
 DS82: Clinton, 1998 
 DS83: Clinton, 1999 
 DS84: Clinton, 2000 
 DS85: George W. Bush, 2002 
 DS86: George W. Bush, 2003 
 DS87: George W. Bush, 2004 
 DS88: George W. Bush, 2005 
 DS89: George W. Bush, 2006 
 DS90: George W. Bush, 2007 
 DS91: George W. Bush, 2008
description: 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.