The JFK Library and Museum in Boston oftens evocative insights into one of the US’ most mythologised presidents.
The fame of dying too soon
It’s funny how some people become cultural icons without people knowing too much about them. Just ask any student wearing a Che Guevara T-shirt if they can tell you how many people he killed, and you’ll get my drift.
One such person (at least as far as I’m concerned) is John Fitzgerald Kennedy. If most of us had to name an American president, he’d be near the top if not at the top of the list; JFK is the sort of figure that transcends the generations.
This is partly because of his 1963 assassination and the million-and-one conspiracy theories surrounding it. Nothing gets you famous faster than dying before your time – look at Kurt Cobain or Tupac Shakur. In fact, if most people had to name a city linked to JFK, they’d probably plump for Dallas (or, at a push, Washington DC).
Kennedy’s Boston pedigree
But Kennedy was very much a Boston boy. Well, technically he was born in Brookline, which likes to think of itself as a different town, but it’s a suburb to all intents and purposes.
He was educated at Harvard (again, in the separate city of Cambridge, but again, effectively a Boston suburb). He was also the congress representative and then the senator for Massachusetts.
The JFK Library
It’s fitting, therefore, that the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum can be found in Boston. And for anyone with similarly fuzzy ideas about what the man was about, it’s well worth plunging into the depths of the subway system for.
The Library and Museum sits on the shoreline, overlooking Boston in a spot that is reminiscent of his beloved Cape Cod. The building itself is pretty striking, with glass-obsessed architect I.M. Pei applying his usual bold touches.
What’s the visitor experience like at the JFK Library?
Inside, it’s a reverent journey through JFK’s life – at times perhaps too respectful, rather than insightful – but parts of it really send the shivers down the spine. Most notably, this feeling comes in the introductory video. It has been edited brilliantly to ensure all the narration is done by JFK himself. There’s plenty of footage of him larking about with footballs and boats in his early years, and that so much video and audio remains hints at one reason for his enduring appeal.
The first president of the television age
Kennedy was really the first president of the television age. He was borderline with obsessed with how history was recorded and committed a terrific amount to film. TV also, arguably, won him the presidency. The televised debates helped Kennedy gain ground against the strongly-favoured Richard Nixon in the 1960 election campaign, with Kennedy coming out sounding eloquent and knowledgeable while Nixon looked pale and stumbling. Kennedy himself was later to concede that “it was television more than anything else that turned the tide”.
Losing the swing states
Through newspaper clippings, mocked-up TV studios and replicas of the Oval Office, other interesting detail emerges. Kennedy won the 1960 election, despite having only 49.7% of the popular vote. He also lost key swing states – Florida, New Hampshire, California, Ohio and Iowa – that conventional wisdom says you’d need to win if you’re going to get elected.
Read between the lines, and it’s really vice-president Lyndon Johnson who won the election – the Texan delivered a remarkable number of what would now be regarded as solid Republican southern states for Kennedy.
Kennedy’s speaking style and his World War II experience
Intricacies of American politics aside, there are some fabulous displays on Kennedy’s speaking style (he adhered to some pretty strong rules on keeping it uncomplicated), the impact on the world of his wife, Jackie, and the tension of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. I also found myself learning about things I hadn’t a clue about, such as Kennedy being shipwrecked in the Solomon Islands during World War II and the fact that he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book, Profiles In Courage.
For anyone who loves history (hands right up here), the JFK Library and Museum is an amazing spot – as most presidential libraries are.
But it’s somewhere that should have an appeal beyond the history geeks – it’s a chance to properly get to know someone we all instantly recognise and probably should be able to pinpoint with more detail.
More Boston travel
Boston tours and activities worth considering include small group walking tours along the Freedom Trail, whale-watching cruises and North End food tours.
Other Boston travel articles on Planet Whitley include:
- Learning the legends of Harvard on a campus tour.
- Discovering the story of baseball, starting at Fenway Park.
- A first time visitor’s guide to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
- Why visit the Back Bay neighbourhood in Boston?
- 5 really good reasons to visit Boston.
