WORCESTER— For Americans who lived through the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 64 years ago today, no one personified that day and the war that followed more than President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

On Dec. 8, Mr. Roosevelt delivered one of the most famous speeches in presidential oratory, declaring Dec. 7 as a date which would live in infamy.

The entire speech and other FDR wartime appearances can be viewed at the Franklin D. Roosevelt American Heritage Center Museum along with other wartime FDR appearances, war documents signed by him and an extensive collection of Roosevelt ephemera and memorabilia.

For example, there is a copy of the day-of-infamy quote from the Dec. 8 speech to Congress and Roosevelt’s signature with the notation “C-in-C,” referring to his title of commander and chief.

“Although we are not having any special Pearl Harbor Day events, we certainly have plenty of material related to the war,” said museum founder Dr. Joseph J. Plaud. “The museum would be a good place for people to reflect on the day and the events of that time.”

Opened in 2004 on the second floor of Union Station, the museum recently increased its size by one-third to house special displays.

The museum has a section of the glass top from FDR’s oval office desk and a presidential fountain pen, as well as collections of FDR's fedora hats and canes. Also included in the collection are war ration books, military programs and World War II posters.

“We have FDR’s Panama hat that he wore to a summit in Tehran and a dollar bill signed by FDR, Harry Hopkins and secret servicemen,” Dr. Plaud said. “The dollar bill was passed around aboard the president’s plane in flight from Tunisia to Cairo on its way to Tehran.”

Dr. Plaud, 40, of Whitinsville, inspired by his grandmother Carmella Perry’s abiding fondness for FDR, began collecting Roosevelt material in junior high school. He had amassed so much material by the mid-1990s that he decided to either sell it or show it.

“I really didn’t want to sell it,” Dr. Plaud said. City officials helped arrange for space at Union Station.

Dr. Plaud appeared on a Discovery Channel FDR biography earlier this year as an expert on the president’s health, in particular his battle with polio.

“Even people who were alive at the time forget that his legs were useless to him,” Dr. Plaud said. “He and his therapist Helena Mahoney developed a technique for ‘walking’ with braces.” When the president wanted to give the appearance of walking, Dr. Plaud said, he would lock arms with someone strong — one of his sons or more often a Secret Service agent.

“He’d take the aide’s arm on the left side and have the cane on his right arm,” Dr. Plaud said. “He learned to pivot his legs back and forth. If you saw it, you would swear he was walking but all he was doing was swinging his legs around.”

Because he had to hold onto the lectern to keep himself upright during a speech, he used facial expressions such as the famous chin jut to take the place of hand gestures, Dr. Plaud said.

The museum has noted important anniversaries in Roosevelt’s personal and public life, including most recently Eleanor Roosevelt’s birthday in October and plans a special event in the spring to mark FDR’s death, April 12, 1945.

Dr. Plaud said he is considering a Pearl Harbor event next year to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the attack.

Admission to the museum is free. It will be open today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cyrus Lipsitt is the museum director.