We have announced to the Community Just a couple of days ago the passing of the very first director of the jfk library. He was a member of the Kennedy Administration. It is a special pride that he would share it would glow in him, in his advocacy for the importance of the Kennedy Administration and the many treasures we had inside our building. I love this photograph of the building, it is nighttime. For those who have not yet come to see us, i believe the library is inspirational in and of itself and fitting for the life and times and ideas of an inspirational president , the 35th president , president kennedy. If you are able to come to visit us, you will see this building. We are right on Columbia Point facing toward Boston Harbor and it is a sight that will elevate your thoughts, and as you think about what the nation is all about and your role and it and whether you would answer president kennedys call to service which he issued in his inaugural address, up goat asked not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. All of those words reverberate throughout the building and i think everyone who comes through is changed by it. If we go to the slide, you will see what was in the background on the first slide, a flag. You come through the resume and experience a lot of president kennedys origin story, his campaign, his debates against the other candidate, richard nixon. You get the opportunity to really experience who he was through the magic of video and audio clips and props in terms of things that were part of the administration and achievements therein. You would experience all of that and then come out into this atrium. President kennedy himself did not want to have the focus be on busts or portraits of himself. It was felt the flag of the United States would simply represent the presidency. You would enter this atrium, which is also a memorial space for a fallen president , and reflect upon his life and perhaps ask yourself what if . What if he had lived out his life and served certainly the duration of his term . What could have been . You could reflect on whether you would answer his call to service. How might you either locally or nationally serve the greater interest to create a more just and Peaceful World . All of that i think is part of the experience of our library and i look forward to reopening and welcoming people from around the nation and around the world to enter with us. It is exciting that we are now reflecting on the 19th amendment and the historic milestones that led up to it and the reverberations of that amendment beyond that. President kennedys administration and their role in advancing womens rights in the nation. It is an exciting thing. Thank you for having me here to speak on that. As you can see from this slide, jfk and womens rights, it was a truly a major part of president kennedys platform as a candidate. He spoke eloquently about the importance of womens rights and all human rights. He got bogged down in a lot of issues. I think all presidencies involve a learning curve and the National Issues that pop up are traditionally unpredictable. We can move onto the next slide. In 1960, this is the historic context, women make up one third of the countrys labor force. They earn only . 60 on every dollar earned by men. Unlike some of his predecessors, president kennedy did not appoint that many positions in the Kennedy Administration to women and did not have any women in the cabinet itself. I can flip to the next slide. I think there is a great clip, and many of us have watched it many times, where one of the craig on, may november 8, 1961, asks president kennedy the democratic platform on which you ran promises to work for equal rights for women, including equal pay, and to wipe out job opportunity discriminations. Now you have made efforts on behalf of others, but what have you done for the women according to the promises of the platform . I will say that president kennedys answer, while witty in the moment and wellregarded in the moment, i think there is a play within a play here because his answer as well, i am sure we have not done enough and there is laughter in the audience. I am a strong supporter of equal pay for equal work and we should do better, and im glad you have reminded me of that, mrs. Craig. I think if it had been left by itself, it could have been interpreted as a dismissive answer, but i think what we see on the record as the followthrough following that brief question and answer, kennedys response does rise to the occasion and he does take it seriously. We can flip to the next slide. Youve got it there, kennedys response. Historians consider three Kennedy Administration initiatives to have been significant in furthering womens rights. Number one, the creation of the president s commission on the status of women. Number two, the order of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender in hiring federal employees and the , signing of the equal pay act. The equal pay act was the First Federal legislation that sought to put women on equal footing with men. We can go to the next slide. This commission on the status of women is extremely important. At the urging of Esther Peterson, head of the womens bureau of the department of labor, kennedy creates the commission with executive order 10890 in 1961. As an interesting side note, if anyone is looking for a Research Project or wants to write a think thescript, i womens bureau is a film worth making at some point. He appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman of the commission and she served in this capacity until her death in 1962. Esther peterson was vice chair and took over upon Eleanor Roosevelts passing. I would say that his relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the defining relationships of president kennedys presidency. Certainly she is a major factor in his becoming president in the first place. He works very hard to get her support for him as a candidate. She is enamored with and very supportive of Adlai Stevenson earlier on going into the democratic convention, and it is by the power of meeting with her in person at her residence in new york, coming out of that conversation she comes around and sees the real kennedy. Not just his social side, but the depth of his conviction and ideas, and i think it is wonderful that he appoints her as chairwoman of this commission. We can flip to the next slide. We have a picture here of Esther Peterson with president kennedy, the secretary of labor, arthur goldberg, and the chairman of the Civil Service commission, john macy. This is december, 1961. We can flip to the next slide where he is meeting with the president s commission on the status of women, now underway here in february of 1962. We can flip to the next slide. I will pause here and say a few things. In april of 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt interviews him about the status of women. It starts out with some softball questions, what prompts president kennedy to form the commission . He answers, clearly, we need to do better and the government needs to lead the way. Eleanor roosevelt then starts to dig a little deeper. Do better how . What exactly are we going to do about this . President kennedy, in some ways, says i was looking forward to , seeing the output from the commission to get guidance on where we should focus our efforts. I know that eleanor is not fully satisfied by that but then she , begins to answer his inquiries about where should we focus. She says one of the things we should focus on is childcare. If we cannot do better in terms of childcare, it will be difficult to have women more fully enter the labor force. Certainly, where other countries may have had more success in women entering the labor force, america was behind some other countries, she felt. I should also add in terms of context, though this may seem like an obvious idea by todays standards, there are Many Political opponents during this time who felt women should be removed from the labor force it created acause greater scarcity of jobs that might be available to men who want to jobs. I think an argument that a similar to some of the antiimmigration going on today so these are not new arguments. They were not invented then and they will not go away anytime soon. I think president kennedys answer to that is if we need to do better on the economy and grow the markets and the labor force overall, then let us focus on making a better and healthier stronger economy for all such that while welcoming others into the labor force who will grow the nation ever stronger. E can go on to the next slide in response to the commission and its report, president kennedy does open more federal jobs and promotions for women. You can see here a memorandum dated july 23, 1962. It is a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies on equal opportunity for women. Consideration for any career position must be made solely on the basis of merit and fitness. As we have seen from many other efforts to move our nation toward justice, making things legal or illegal is not the end of the road. A lot of work needs to happen beyond that to eliminate discrimination. At least some of the legal groundwork is laid in that moment. We can move on to the. Namely, the equal pay act signed in june of 1963. It makes it illegal to discriminate based on gender in deciding employee wages. ,e have used the term here discriminate based on gender. The actual historic term of the era was discrimination based on sex. Just for those interested in the historic language. Kennedy noted that the act represents any years of effort to call attention to the unconscionable practice of paying female employees plus wages than male employees for the same job. This measure adds to our laws another structure basic to democracy while much remains to be done to achieve full equality of economic opportunity, for the average woman worker earns only 60 of the average wage for men, this legislation is a significant first step forward. As we know today more steps need to be taken. I think it is an interesting and exciting moment in time as we go to the next slide. We have the signing of the equal pay act on june 10, 1963. It is an interesting photograph and some might note just by the it is on the left side clearly an africanamerican woman there and that is Dorothy Height who was president of the National Council of new grow women and served in that role from 1957 to 1997 and therefore that historic moment. Again, these are struggles that do not end on that moment and i think it is quite a shame and shocking for those who remember those moments. It is only a few months after the signing that president kennedy is assassinated and unable to Carry Forward the legacy even further. Lyndon johnson assumes the presidency and advances many legacys of kennedys from that point on. I just wanted to make sure people knew some of those historic facts. I encourage you to come to the library and learn more about it. As i said before, the womens bureau i think would make a terrific movie. All right. Are we ready to jump into some questions . Alan yes. Who do we have . Patrick i want to remind everyone that if you would like to ask a question on this or about the library, please put those on the chat box on youtube and we will put those in and try to get them in the queue for alan. Lets start with a couple of basic ones. Take moderators discretion and ask the first question. Alan feel free. Patrick in the last couple of months we have really been looking at legacy. Legacy of historic figures, president s, the founding and forward. What can you tell us about whether it is historians or the public that you are finding at the Kennedy Library people thinking about john f. Kennedys legacy . Has it been shifting . Folks would be interested in hearing about that. Alan i think many people point to some pretty concrete measures in terms of his legacy. The establishment of the peace corps as an agency, certainly an inspiring legacy for the thousands who have served as volunteers and returned with an even greater sense of Civic Responsibility to lead the nation. Theink that the signing of Test Ban Treaty and i will connect that to the peaceful resolution of the cuban missile crisis from which we have learned a tremendous amount and subsequent putting into place things like a hot line and thethe white house kremlin to reduce the risk of Nuclear Escalation and other. Eacemaking efforts i think that his rhetoric in so many ways has inspired generations not only in america but around the world. He was a beloved president. I could say that the entire isnedy family, ms. Kennedy an inspiration, his brother bobby, his brother ted kennedy and their public service. The sisters as well did so many things from the Special Olympics to fighting injustice and pushing in the Civil Rights Era to senator kennedys ofgstanding championing universal healthcare. All of those things i believe then his legacy of legacy of president kennedy and the Kennedy Family in powerful ways. Patrick thank you. Are there any members of the Kennedy Family involved with the library . Kennedy have caroline and her husband Ed Schlossberg who are very involved in the Library Foundation which is very helpful in supporting the programming and effort and outreach of the library. Edsld say caroline and daughter has recently joined the board of the Library Foundation and we are excited that a new generation is taking up the cause of how can we make sure that our repository is truly citizens forenrich another 40 years. Members are there any of jfks cabinet still alive . Alan yes. Finn,he passing of dan there is in the at least one other and another prior serving member, that is chuck daly who was appointed to the Kennedy Administration in the summer of 63. The administration did not last much longer than that. He is a living witness to those times. Patrick i think i saw him in that picture that you showed earlier. How many visitors does the museum half and researchers in a regular year . Year we getegular year 250,000 visitors per and about 15 of those are international visitors. The remaining 85 comes from all over the nation. People are smart to make president ial libraries part of their family road trip and destinations. Some come by cruise ship. Many come from many Different Countries often times with stories of their direct personal connection to why president kennedy was important to them. One of my favorite things to do is to stand in the lobby on different days and ask people how did you come to choose this place and what did you think of it and they tell me their personal connection to president kennedy and it is marvelous. Add we have so many School Groups who come by the busload who are not even counted in that number. Now that we have had the pandemic disruption, we had thousands participate in our programs virtually. Everything from education about the dirty fifth president to Civic Education in general 35th president. We take great pride in fulfilling the mission that future generations should be inspired by the words and deeds of this president. Patrick we are very encouraged thehe fact that president ial archives in washington have quite a bit of demand for educational materials and resources, folks returning to these trusted institutions to ground their teaching whether you are a new parent who has become a teacher or an actual certified teacher in the classroom. Quite a demand. Everywe put out a blast tuesday to teachers, many of the withe school teachers, primary source materials and lesson plans to introduce many of these concepts to your classroom. We try to make it easy for teachers to incorporate these sections of history into their lesson plans. Patrick perfect. Let me see if i can make my way through a couple more questions. Research related question i will bundle them and let you answer. Are there any more papers about the assassination that will be coming out and secondary to that, what are researchers studying when they come to the library and the archives if you can share general topics. Alan research is always happening with us. Though it is more challenging to do it in this pandemic telework environment, we still respond to hundreds of researcher requests constantly. When researchers are with us and believe, the library that attracts the greatest number of researchers and researcher requests, we take great pride. Their Research Subjects are so varied. Last summer we had a researcher with us for almost the entire summer who had come from italy and who was doing research on Bobby Kennedy because when bobby was doing investigations into the rackets, the organized crime. The attorney general reorganized the department of justice in an interdisciplinary way to be able to anticipate and better respond the criminal activities of organized crime. He was the first to publicly an enemy ofia as democracy in so many ways. Italy had not done that. Italy in many ways borrowed their model of better response from bobbis response. It is fascinating that somebody from italy would go back into the 60s, research bobby liquidity for answers to how we could do better in italy. Abouty Research Requests ms. Kennedy and not so much about what she wore who she was and the role she played, her visit to india and things like that. Many Research Requests obviously we have some greatest hits around the vietnam war, the cuban missile crisis and things like that. The process of the classifying documents continues to this day. As more things become declassified, researchers will have a constant stream of new things they will want to review and make sure the public is anye of because administration can only really be thoroughly understood over the course of time. Patrick that is a good segue we had a couple of questions come in about jackie kennedy. Do you all hold her papers as well . Let me ask a couple here. On thinkingnfluence about womens rights and legislation policy . I will let you start. ,lan let me just point out some will find a bit of this surprising. In the big picture the archival collections we hold, obviously president kennedy and his administration, we hold the collection for ms. Kennedy, we hold the collection for Bobby Kennedy and for ted kennedy. And we also have, and this is by interesting historic connection, the Ernest Hemingway connection collection because when Ernest Hemingway passes away and Mary Hemingway cannot get his belongings and papers out of cuba and appeals to the Kennedy Administration for help, it is ms. Kennedy who helps facilitate that and makes sure that she is take oneet there and fishing boat worth of belongings back to the u. S. She asked Mary Hemingway what are you going to do with this. Because Ernest Hemingway never went to university, there was no logical other place to hold his collection of papers and ms. Theedy said, when we build president ial library, we would be honored to have his things with your husbands papers. Particularly for thatgway scholars, collection. Aps is open to the general public a piece. That collection is for real scholars of literature. That is a bit about some of the collections. The other piece of your question was about ms. Kennedy in particular. Remind me again . Patrick are you aware of her influencing the conversation around womens rights . She had to have been a major influence for him. There are still many times where she does influence him. One of my favorites is they are to address a dinner a gathering of democrats and president kennedy has his written remarks of things he is , he starts with the history of the democratic party, etc. You can see beyond the remarks that he has written, he has difficult handwriting to read, he passes a note to ms. Knedy, what is that quote from ulysses . And ms. Kennedy, verbatim, right quote fromites out a ulysses. He is at the end of his remarks quoting ulysses as if he knew it by heart but it is really ms. Kennedy who it by heart because she was at least in her earlier years a far more serious student. I think president kennedy becomes serious later in life but early in life it is clear that ms. Kennedy and her classical education, she was a far more serious student and remembers that poetry by heart. Patrick hopefully this is not a trick question for you. Any recommendations of a good book on jfk . Alan there are several really. Ood books on jfk im going to mention one that should be coming out early a notedr because harvard historian has written and hasfantastic books attempted to put together the definitive and comprehensive two. Olume set on president kennedy it is a gross injustice to summarize it this way, it is the earlier years and origin story. There will be a volume two covering specifically the administration. Volume one is coming out Early September and i am very excited to see it. I have talked with fred a number of times about this. I think he does a very comprehensive, fair and balanced approach to the subject and i am looking forward to reading what this noted historian has done. Patrick terrific. Thank you for that recommendation. We have a couple of questions about the museum. I had the benefit of being there a few times. We have a question about the space program. What kinds of objects, artifacts and documents. I know we dont have images, but talk about some of the galleries if they have never been to a president ial library of before, what they might experience as they make their way through. Alan two things i would point out and they are connected objects that we have on display though they are separated by a good bit of distance. Early on as you begin your tour through the museum, you would see a good bit about president kennedys origin story, his younger years, but then it quickly goes into his World War Ii Service record and his service on pt 109 in particular. A lot of people dont appreciate that president kennedy was ill for most of his life, multiple illnesses. That jack wased so sickly that if a mosquito would bite him, the mosquito would certainly die. He just seemed to be sick all the time. Yet when it was time for world war ii, jack wanted to enlist andhe was initially refused turned down for military service. He prevailed on his father to intervene. He really wanted to serve. He was accepted into the navy and assigned a desk job. He asked his father to intervene again because he must go to the front and he was assigned to pt 109 in the Pacific Theater and served admirably. Bo those who dont know, pt ats are incredibly small. They are 60 feet long. They are wooden ships with a metal hull. Andtands for patrol torpedo. They would try to disrupt the enemy supply chains as best they could. In the middle of the night there was a collision between the 109. Ese destroyer and pt crewembers of the pt 109 were killed in that collision. The others managed to swim to safety. There is a lot of backandforth between president kennedy and the commander. And maintain a relationship for the rest of their lives. It is extraordinary. The commander actually comes to the u. S. To campaign for kennedy when he is running for the presidency. Moment prior to the collision when the commander instructs his helmsmen to avoid collision and prepare for the reality that if you collide with a torpedo boat, it could hurt your boat. At the helmsmen does not follow the order and the commander later courtmartialed the helmsmen. He really did not want to have that collision. , there was anedy prior injury to his back, disc problems from harvard football. He sustained further injuries to his back in that collision that manages to grab the lifejacket of another sailor and begin swimming to an island and the rest of the crew follow and they survive for six days before local Indigenous People spot them and teach them that they can inscribe a note on a coconut husk which president kennedy does. We are on analive, island, kennedy the local folks it turns up on an australian Shepherd Offshore which relayed the message to the navy who thought all were lost. Now they know folks are live and where to look and they are rescued. President kennedys father has had that husk preserved as a paperweight and we have that paperweight as one of the very first exhibits in our library. Were it not for that, president kennedy would not have been rescued and much later in our exhibit, we have this marvelous gesture on peace and reconciliation upon president kennedys inauguration. It is a letter from the still living members of the ship who congratulate him on becoming president and they all sign it. I love that we have those both on display. Patrick that is wonderful. Great connecting points between objects and documents. Therfect example of what president ial libraries do quite well. We have a few more minutes. I have a closing question for you. I have a followup question, did kennedy collaborate with lbj on any of the womens rights policies that you referenced or other ones that might not have come to fruition . Alan i am not a great expert on lbj and the details of how he carries forward the agenda. I think there are many admirable and honest conclusions that can be drawn. Here is what i will offer as the best answer to the question. Come to our library, look at the documents yourself, the library is here for you, the people and we would be happy to share the original documents with you so you can see the full texture and nuance and reach her own conclusion. Patrick wonderful. Just to close, i think it is nice to hear about some work you might be doing either with other president ial libraries or what 2021, thingsned in that might be coming forward that folks can look forward to when they can come and visit in person. Any major exhibits or initiatives that folks should be keeping an eye out for . Alan absolutely. This coming spring, april 2021, there will be a temporary exhibit focused on childhood in the white house and what was the experience of caroline and john junior going up in the white house. There havent been children growing up in the white house Teddy Roosevelt son. The challenges that ms. Kennedy faced in trying to give them a normal childhood in spite of the fact that there was incredible media scrutiny on everything they did. That will be one. And then the following spring of 2022, we will do a much more expanded look at world war ii, the naval campaigns, and we will start with pt 109 but we will build out from there to the Pacific Theater and ultimately where as many people have ,een in the Vietnam Memorial the names, we will display in pavilion, the names of all the fallen in world war ii. I hope it will be a significant destination for veterans and their families and all students of history. I think it is going to be a powerful presentation. Patrick very impressive. Learningbeen wonderful about the womens connection, womens policy connection, legislation as we run up to the anniversary next week, the 19th amendment. We are delighted to have you as part of our series. Alan thank you so much, patrick. Can i end with a quote . Patrick please. Alan at the dedication of our library, president carter was a speaker who came for the dedication. There is a piece i would like to library,h is, this this repository of facts and ideas will feed history with a permanent record of the dreams of John Fitzgerald kennedy and also the realization of those dreams. In america the records of a great political leader will not be threatened by succeeding political regimes which might fear them because we are nation committed not only to freedom, but also to the pursuit of truth. No i just love those words. Patrick that is a wonderful closing. Thank you for your time. Much to think about and hopefully inspire viewers. You guys have a terrific website with lots of resources for folks to explore the kennedy legacy and the administration. Alan patrick, thank you. Patrick absolutely. This is American History tv on cspan3 where we have 48 hours of programs exploring our nations past. Every 10 years since 1790, the u. S. Government has set to root set out to record data about the population. Thes demanded by constitution. In our series railamerica, a series of movies on the census. The best place to get information about the entire population is the place where the people sleep. In most cases, this will be easy. There will be some cases places that will be out of and hard to find. The enumerator will have to find out of about out about the people who live in these places his job not be complete until he has done so. What are the names of the other persons living with you, misses mcgee . There is me, and my son william, my husband, my two sons, and a reporter. We willis is his home, have to count him as one of your household. Is there anyone here who is not here . A third son is away with the ccc. He has to go down too. We have to count babies also. Are there any babies here . No, not anymore. Related members of the household should be listed in order of their ages, and those not related to come last. You have the information on every man, woman, and child that eat at each address the purpose of questions 21 through 25 on the schedule is to determine the Employment Status of all persons over 14 years of age. The enumerator will have to waste every such person in one of two large groups, workers in the labor force and persons not in the labor force. Workers in the labor force be further ossified into the following group one, worker and private business or government work, two, public emergency work, wpa, ccc, vocal work leave, and so forth, three, for, seeking work, on a break from work for several reasons. If each enumerator incorrectly reported five employed persons as seeking work, the extent of the employment in the United States would be understated by more than half a million. Persons not in the labor force will be further divided into the following groups, housekeeper,tudent, persons unable to work inmates of prisons, asylums, and so forth, persons not in the labor force for other reasons. Learn more about the senses tonight at 10 00 p. M. Eastern 10 00 p. M. Ght at eastern. Andresident Donald Trump FormerVice President joe biden ours at two debate on tuesday. Biden is Cutting Police spending. He probably accepted the portlandnt of the attorney who has the policy of releasing criminals and violent extremists without charge. He lied to the american people, knowingly lied about the threat imposed to the country for months. He had the information. He knew how dangerous it was and while this deadly disease ripped through our nation, he failed to do his job on purpose. Watch live coverage of the first president ial bait, tuesday, december 29 on cspan at 9 00 p. M. Eastern president ial debate, tuesday, september 29 on cspan at 9 00 p. M. Eastern time. There is also a link to our campaign 2020 website with campaign videos, and election result. To cspan. Org result cspan. Org debate. There are more than 400 National Parks across america, covering over 85 million acres of land with locations in every state. More than 325 Million People visited these sites last year. We will feature a mixture of Natural Beauty and history at eight different parks around the country. We begin just outside cleveland at cuyahoga national park. Situated along the cuyahoga river, we will learn how the canal system here plays a major role in our nations westward expansion during the 1840s