January 20th marked the 50th anniversary of JFK’s inauguration. To celebrate, the JFK Presidential Library (Columbia Point in Boston, MA) unveilled the first, and largest online presidential archive. The $10 million project sifted through papers (200,000), recordings (1,200), film, and photographs to capture important aspects of JFK’s presidency. The library will continues to add 100,000 items to the archive each year and it will still take 100 years to digitize the entire collection! Imagine how much room that would take up in the attic. This collection will give the world the chance to virtually experience the material while also preserving the original documents.
This site is honestly a fun way to spend an evening (if you are a geek like me). First, I watched the presidential debate between Kennedy and Nixon in 1960, what a riot - the debate looked like it was set up in someones garage with an old sheet as the background. I was struck by how remarkably respectful and polite Nixon and Kennedy were to one another as they discussed domestic policy. I don’t know how they felt on the inside but they didn’t display the disdain and superiority that I see in candidate today.
Next, I headed into the personal papers of Kennedy and found a letter that his father, Joseph, had written to him in September, 1940. The letters have been scanned and as I read the ‘original’ it really felt like I had found this old letter at the bottom of a suitcase, I could even imagine the typewriter he used to create it. Joseph writes to John about the book Profiles in Courage, which was published in 1956 and won JFK the Pulitzer Prize (I put this on my book list). There was actually some debate about JFK’s role in writing the book, some suspected that Ted Sorensen had actually written the majority of the book with JFK’s notes. Anyway, Joe tells John that the Duchess of Kent came over for dinner and was curious how such a young man could have written such a powerful book (can’t you just hear her saying that?). Joe reports that he told the Duchess that his sons had always been precocious!
Personal letters, photographs and artifacts are a powerful way to learn and understand historic events. This archive is a gift to students who are now able to sift through JFK’s “scrapbooks”, reading primary source materials, even though they might live on the other side of the planet. It’s also a treasure to Americans who can better understand JFK as a person, a son, a father, and a brother struggling to do his best during a turbulent time in American history. After reading his letters and flipping through the family photos I feel just a little wiser about the JFK than I did yesterday which qualifies today as a successful day.
Next, I headed into the personal papers of Kennedy and found a letter that his father, Joseph, had written to him in September, 1940. The letters have been scanned and as I read the ‘original’ it really felt like I had found this old letter at the bottom of a suitcase, I could even imagine the typewriter he used to create it. Joseph writes to John about the book Profiles in Courage, which was published in 1956 and won JFK the Pulitzer Prize (I put this on my book list). There was actually some debate about JFK’s role in writing the book, some suspected that Ted Sorensen had actually written the majority of the book with JFK’s notes. Anyway, Joe tells John that the Duchess of Kent came over for dinner and was curious how such a young man could have written such a powerful book (can’t you just hear her saying that?). Joe reports that he told the Duchess that his sons had always been precocious!
Personal letters, photographs and artifacts are a powerful way to learn and understand historic events. This archive is a gift to students who are now able to sift through JFK’s “scrapbooks”, reading primary source materials, even though they might live on the other side of the planet. It’s also a treasure to Americans who can better understand JFK as a person, a son, a father, and a brother struggling to do his best during a turbulent time in American history. After reading his letters and flipping through the family photos I feel just a little wiser about the JFK than I did yesterday which qualifies today as a successful day.
No comments:
Post a Comment