Away from the busy streets of downtown Boston, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum sits on Columbia Point in Dorchester, overlooking Boston Harbor. Dedicated to the life and presidency of the nation’s 35th president, it occupies a waterfront setting that seems especially fitting for a man who loved the sea. But before getting into the history inside, the building itself deserves a little attention.
With its white concrete walls, sharp geometric lines, and soaring glass pavilion, the museum was designed by I. M. Pei, the architect who would later create the Louvre’s glass pyramid. Jacqueline Kennedy chose him in 1964, when he was still relatively unknown compared with several of the architects under consideration. She saw in him the imagination and promise she wanted for the project.
The library was originally planned for a site near Harvard University, selected by Kennedy himself shortly before his death. After years of delays and concerns about traffic and congestion, the project moved to Columbia Point, and Pei developed a new design for the waterfront location. The building was dedicated on October 20, 1979, with President Jimmy Carter attending.
The architecture has a deliberate progression: visitors move through darker exhibition spaces before emerging into the soaring glass-and-steel pavilion, where a large American flag hangs above an otherwise open space. Pei intended this as a place to pause, look toward the water, and reflect—a moment to take in both the history and the view.
Inside, the museum follows Kennedy’s life from his early years through the 1960 presidential campaign and his time in the White House. Photographs, personal belongings, campaign memorabilia, and film footage tell the story of an era shaped by the space race, the civil rights movement, and the creation of the Peace Corps. Exhibits also explore Jacqueline Kennedy’s role as First Lady, Robert Kennedy’s work as attorney general, and the family’s life in the White House, adding a personal side to the political history.
Jacqueline Kennedy has a story of her own, and I wanted to give her a little space here. Along with these photographs, I’ve included the museum’s brief account of her life.
The Resolute desk in this photograph is a replica. Some of the smaller details, though, came from Kennedy’s Oval Office, including framed photographs of his children and model ships he kept there. It was from that office that Kennedy spoke to the nation about racial discrimination in June 1963, an address featured in the museum’s account of the civil rights struggle.
The sailboat on the museum lawn is Victura, the 25-foot sloop Kennedy’s father bought for him in 1932, when Jack was fifteen. Latin gave him some trouble in school, but he found a name that suited a boy who liked to race. Victura means “about to be victorious.”
He sailed her for the rest of his life. One of the photographs inside the museum shows Jack teaching his younger brother Ted how to rig the boat in 1946. Another shows him sailing with his family in 1962, by then president and still at home on the water. Tucked in among the photographs is one of his own sailboat doodles.
As a former high school English teacher, I was familiar with the name Ernest Hemingway and his books, but what I hadn’t expected was to find them in the Kennedy Library. Naturally, it piqued my curiosity.
The story goes that after Hemingway's passing in 1961, President Kennedy helped his widow, Mary, travel to Cuba to retrieve the papers her husband had left at their home there. Three years later, Mary wrote to Jacqueline Kennedy and offered the collection to the future presidential library. Thanks to those two women, my visit to a presidential museum brought me back, for a moment, to my English classroom.
How many of these books have you read?
(click on photos to enlarge)
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I began this visit with a photograph of the museum entrance, so it seems fitting to end with the view from the other side. After seeing Kennedy at work in the Oval Office and at the helm of Victura in those family photographs, I can appreciate why his family chose this spot. I’ll leave you with the view across Boston Harbor.
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