In this 1948 New Year’s Day address, NYC Health Commissioner Harry Mustard radiates post-war optimism and faith in the future.   He proudly recounts the accomplishments of the previous year in infant and maternal health, food and water safety and venereal disease treatment.  He also candidly discusses the resource shortages of the Health Department, as well as the need to do more in the areas of environmental health (smoke from old furnaces was a key issue of the time), tuberculosis, chronic disease and mental hygiene.   In short, he sounds like he is giving a report from NYC’s current model for action, “Take Care, New York”.

One of the few practitioners of monology, Cornelia Otis Skinner does not give a customary sales pitch at this 1951 Books and Authors Luncheon, instead reproducing "what goes on in the mind of the subscriber to the Friday symphony who goes to the concert by herself."

Though it is already two decades after the start of World War II, the shadow of Nazi Germany still looms large over this 1960 talk given by journalist and historian William L. Shirer at a Books and Authors Luncheon. 

Calling himself a "Broadway wise-cracker and a Hollywood hack," Robert Sherwood, author, soldier, pacifist, and speechwriter, gives a stirring account of his wartime work for the Roosevelt administration at this 1948 Books and Authors Luncheon.

In this speech at a Books and Authors Luncheon in 1965, the former special assistant to the president answers his critics and defends his insider's view of the Kennedy administration.  

This 1962 tribute to the former first lady features eight women reminiscing about their friend, and illuminating the many different areas of Eleanor Roosevelt's politically wide-ranging life. 

Jackie Robinson and Dr. Sterling Wade Brown, representing the National Conference of Christians and Jews, answer questions about the fight for civil rights in this 1968 interview. 

A vivid snapshot of the days when Labor reigned supreme in America, this 1963 meeting of the Overseas Press Club features United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther being introduced by his protégé and sidekick, the journalist Victor Riesel.

Beginning in 1947, Jewish and secular civic groups formed the Citizens Committee on Displaced Persons in a public campaign to liberalize U.S. immigration quotas, with the hope that many more Holocaust survivors would be permitted to settle in America.

Peter Ustinov's appearance at this 1960 Books and Authors Luncheon showcases the multi-talented performer's skills as a raconteur and as a master of dialect, mimicry, and sound effects.

"Dehydrating in front of an audience," at this 1957 Books and Authors Luncheon, well-known dramatist and writer S. J. Perelman gives a chilling verbal portrait of the writer's life.

At this Books and Authors Luncheon, Vance Packard tries to dispel the idea that his book, The Hidden Persuaders (1957), is merely about the quirks and absurdities of advertising's use of "motivational research." 

In this 1954 talk, J. Robert Oppenheimer surmises that today's pressing questions "will be transmuted before they are answered" and that "the very process of discovery will shatter the concepts that we today use to describe our puzzlement."

Richard M. Nixon chooses this 1966 appearance at the Overseas Press Club to lay out his position on Vietnam, but not before amiably ribbing Democrats and the press.

Promoting his collection Parents Keep Out, poems aimed primarily at teenagers, the poet Ogden Nash displays the well-known rhyming ability and whimsical attitude of his widely appreciated, inimitable light verse at this 1951 Books and Authors Luncheon.

Before the controversy of the American publication of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov cuts a different figure at this 1958 Books and Authors Luncheon.

"Like a stopped clock," the author Lewis Mumford asserts in this 1961 appearance at a Books and Authors Luncheon, he has been exactly right twice.  

"I'm not an author. I'm merely a victim" is the unwittingly prescient opening statement from Robert Moses at this 1952 Books and Authors Luncheon. 

Hungary's abortive 1956 revolution provides the subject for this talk given by the journalist and novelist James Michener at a 1957 New York Herald Tribune Books and Authors Luncheon.