Virtual Tour - First Children: Caroline and John Jr. in the Kennedy White House

[Music] hi there and thanks for joining us from the john f kennedy presidential library and museum i'm wcvb newscenter 5's antoinette antonio and i'm janice hodson i'm the museum curator here for the librarian museum i'm alan price director here at the library and museum and we're delighted to welcome you to a virtual tour of first children caroline and john jr in the white house welcome i hope you'll enjoy it with us [Music] so janice obviously we're in an area here showing a lot of different magazine covers can you tell us a little bit about what this part of the exhibit is well this um deals with how the media fed the the public fascination with the children and you know it's what feeds what you know the public were interested there were young kids in the white house there hadn't been one young kids in the white house since the early 20th century and the media played into that and you can see you know this we took a sampling of magazine covers from the time period and wanted it to run the gamut of things like newsweek which would be considered you know an informed you know periodical to more tabloidy type of um things like motion picture you know how long can they hide the truth from caroline you know these scientific titles when in reality the the article you know says something like how long can they hide the truth from caroline that she's not just like the girl next door and her family aren't like your neighbors you know they're in the white house you had media pointing out there the equivalent of a royal family for this country and the children were part of that how hard was it for mrs kennedy to kind of control all of this especially when you compare to what the first family deals with today in terms of social media in terms of the press was she allowed and did she have more control in terms of media she tried as much as she could to have control it was a time as you said where you know the majority of americans were getting their news from printed sources uh you had the element of television that was relatively new by 1960 when kennedy is running for president i think 90 of american households had tvs by that time 10 years before it was a fraction of that so it's the medium that kennedy played to and the kids ended up being recorded you know as well and they'd be broadcast in your living room so these were the first first children who were more widely on television television yes and they were the youngest kids to occupy the white house since um teddy roosevelt's kids at the beginning of the 20th century so there was an interest and you know when kennedy was running for president it was the first time that something like 47 of the uh of americans who were eligible to vote were like the age 40 and under so they were the same age range as the president um like him they were world war ii veterans who had young families so the kids were part of what helped people identify with kennedy and these recognized yeah and kennedy recognized the value in that his wife wanted to preserve the children's privacy as much as possible so these um memos that were informal memos written by her that are part of our archives one's to pierre salinger who is um who was kennedy's press secretary talk about how you know she there's well we know there's nothing we can do about the tabloids and the children being in the media but well this photo play article i mean it's just the quotes are wrong their nanny would have never said that we can sue them usually she was advised to just let it go because more more attention will be created by trying to to protest these things in this memo over here she references this this uh life magazine cover and but she notes in this memo specifically you know uh jfk was responsible for letting life use marshall hawkins cover of macaroni that's the the pony here um if he approves anything else on children john and he for look etc could i be told about it first so yeah there's you get this when it comes to the media yeah well i like this line right here um if the press has questions about the children what does caroline want for christmas say that they don't want to give it away mrs k is very sorry but she doesn't want to give any info about the children this year this is october 1962 and by that time she's saying you know major effort to be made this year to keep children out of papers and magazines so how long after they arrived in the white house did her hard efforts start to keep the cake well very early very early it didn't take very long yeah kennedy's family moved in in february 1961. this is april 1961 and [Music] mrs kennedy was upset that photographers using zoom lenses and things were taking pictures of her kids while they were playing on the white house lawn from the fence and she wanted they requested a ban um on that type of activity it didn't mean that it never it didn't continue to happen but there there was um you know a certain level of respect so it did help curb things white house photographers would take these pictures and mrs kennedy would have photo shoots and then the she would select and the white house would select which ones they would circulate so i would say the photo shoots the pictures that were sent to the press and to the magazines this would be the more modern day equivalent of putting it on your own instagram because as a mom you know she wants to protect her children but she also understands that there is a fascination with the first family and this was a way of dealing with it there was enough interest that pictures of the family you know were as as much wanted by people as you know an official presidential portrait how does she walk that line of giving the people what they want versus protecting her kids well as you can see from the memo sometimes it didn't work to the level that she wanted she wanted tighter control than what she was able to achieve you sense it in in you know the memos and some of the the other things in her papers or her writings that she she was going to try and put up a fight but a lot of times you know there was nothing much that could be done about certain things she was as popular as the children they wanted to remain on her good side i would say if they wanted to be continued to allow be allowed to come in and they were only very limited photographers who were allowed to actually go into the white house and photograph the children so did they stay off the lawn when she asked i i i think they did but there are some references later on to photographs being shot through the fence so you know i guess i think it depended on the the individual photographer and the the type of publication maybe yeah did she have any particular type of publication that she was more geared towards well she hated the tabloids you know and she but she realized that there was nothing she could do about it she did you know make statements to the effect that you know it's one thing if they put my husband or me on the cover but my children are another thing but it was it really became out of control unless it was something that she might be able to be claimed to be completely libelous so next i'm going to take you into the section that kind of dovetails with this you know discussion of mrs kennedy and wanting to protect her children and their privacy and part of how she did it well now we've moved on to another exhibit we are in the white house school area and this is really fascinating this is not the first white house school but it likely was the last time the white house had a school inside inside jacqueline kennedy had an experience where caroline had ballet classes outside of the white house which was no issue until they became until her husband became president and then they were caroline was being followed by reporters so she decided mrs kennedy decided to create what was initially called a play group it kind of evolved into a nursery and then by the time carolyn caroline was school age it became a first grade classroom and john jr was part of the the playgroup group ultimately but it was comprised of children who were the kids of their close friends and the parents all pooled their resources and funded the salary of the teachers the parents pooled resources for the supplies books um there was a trampoline that was purchased for the the school kids it was her way of of um providing her kids with an environment where they were learning in something like a classroom setting with other children but again it was controlled they were in you know behind these four private walls and they were still in the they were yeah and these were they they knew the parents of the other students and they weren't going to be blabbing to reporters about you know was this her way of giving them she's known for saying she wants her children to have a happy normal life obviously as normal as it can be when you're living in the white house was this her way to give that to them yeah yeah this was a way and uh she it's it's interesting because in doing that um it also brought the white house school into focus with current events at the time from the time that she announced mrs kennedy announced to the press that the school was being developed some of the first questions were is it going to be integrated because when kennedy took uh took office you know segregation had been rendered illegal by the supreme court in the previous decade but of course you know most schools were not compliant particularly in the south and from the time he was on the campaign trail he that was part of his campaign that he would fight for for equal rights that he would fight for to enforce desegregation laws he was slower doing them than a lot of people wanted him to be so the correspondence that he got reflected you know both sides and the question about integration of the white house school was coming from both people who encouraged that as a way a very visible way for kennedy to demonstrate his sincerity and from racist white supremacists who said well what business do you have telling us that our children have to go to school with negroes when you're not doing this with your children the schools start out integrated it did not start out integrating did the school be coming it became integrated at the time that um they created the first grade classroom the african-american boy who um became part of the the school was avery hatcher who was the son of andrew hatcher who was kennedy's assistant press secretary this was something that had very mixed opinions the subject of integration having a class in the white house in and of itself how was that received by the public uh people were interested in it some people wanted to know how it was funded it was it was also something where occasionally you'd see an article caroline skip school because she didn't go to a class because of some family outing or something and the kids were a large presence within the white house they would routinely you know they'd be outside doing their exercises or they'd be playing out on the lawn at the time did the public get to see any of these pictures or was it just something that they had heard of and seen it was something they had heard of and seen articles about so they knew it existed and they knew caroline went to the school avery hatcher was the only one who was actually named um because he was the child being integrated which kind of puts him in a different spot because they they consistently said well we this that's a private matter we don't reveal the names of the children but they revealed avery hatcher's name you know it's interesting to me the contrast between these two bays of the exhibit the first one the images are just so staged where this feels so much more intimate almost like normal childhood yeah they're they're like family snapshots basically except it was at the white house i think the example most people know is the and one that actually did get a lot of media coverage it was stanley tredek's image of john jr under the resolute desk you know playing while uh while kennedy's sitting at the desk that's a famous that's yeah iconic uh so we're gonna move on actually to that section of the exhibit now [Music] so here we are in the next exhibit let's call this one behind the scenes and obviously that is what we're seeing here these are portraits some from the official white house photographers really giving us an inside look as to what life was like in the white house for the children yeah it's it's just like you know your your family albums at home you've got pictures of your kids in their halloween costumes or oh here we are walking outside the house you know it just happens to be the white house then we do have a few official you know images that were taken specifically for the media these were taken for one of the photo journals um by stanley tretic and uh it just illustrates how the kids had free reign and uh this was a shoot that happened while mrs kennedy was away it happens so you have yeah not coincidentally yeah this was something that uh she didn't know that her husband wanted to do this is actually the shoot that she references in the memo in the first gallery but under even under normal circumstances the kids were allowed this type of free reign they are there are accounts of um diplomats and heads of state visiting one on one with kennedy in the oval office and being interrupted by caroline wanting to come in and give her father a kiss john jr coming in to to show his father something uh andre gramico got um interrupted by john jr and he he noted oh you know in soviet union we love the kids they're really popular there so and this is what kennedy knew uh so this was a um a meeting with his closest advisors and you just look at the the seriousness obviously of what was being discussed um you know and and then you have a little kid playing you know in the in the same space everybody's kind of used to i guess his presence they're not really paying attention it almost seems like these images help humanize the administration for americans but they humanize america for others overseas yes so the president knew exactly what he was doing then he was allowing a lot of these pictures to be taken he did understand that his children and he enjoyed having his his children i mean he really you know liked having his children barge in on him he took a real delight in them but he also recognized that like alan said this helped humanize their image and he saw the benefit of putting out pictures like this for the public to see they had a sandbox on the lawn they had a swing set the kids you know swam in the fountain uh here's the trampoline that was bought for the white house school kids uh they're cooking you know hot dogs and and hamburgers outside this wasn't meant for public consumption this was just documenting you know a family you know gathering with friends invited these are real intimate family photos when you're in any other family these would be typical family photos for a first family at this time these are really intimate photos so i love this one of john jr who's playing with the recording room appointment there's images of him playing around in the you know the helicopter that was used by the president sitting at the controls and things like that this image is one that was taken by one of the the preferred you know photographers that the kennedys used an outside photographer so this was an image that was done for public consumption actually this one predates the white house this is in georgetown but it represents something that was a daily activity for caroline and her father that continued into the white house she would have she would sit with him when he would have breakfast every morning every morning yeah and um that was you know a time they had together and uh there was interestingly this would have been in their private quarters as opposed to these types of images taken by the white house photographers that happened in what you could think of as not not public spaces but not the strictly private spaces these were the spaces that were open to other white house staff to um you know to dignitaries in some cases to the press so and in a lot of the photos we've seen the children clearly had free run of the white house now did they ever come into contact with the press with any reporters because they're also in the white house so did they have any interactions with them they they did run into the reporters especially well i don't know how frequently but i think it was something that wasn't necessarily anticipated when they first got into the white house uh the first interaction caroline was oh she went into the white house communications room that's that's what it was and there were some reporters there and someone just casually asked her where's your father and he's she said something like oh he's he's not doing anything he's just sitting around with his shoes off and you know not doing anything and it ended up you know in like it makes the washington post yeah interesting to me you know as you try as parents to create as normal a childhood as possible in the strangest of circumstances where it may be impossible so that's that's a tight line to walk yeah and just you know things images that that emphasized um just the the normalcy of childhood behavior but in a setting where you're not used to seeing that you know um yeah because they really are just kids being kids yeah the offshoot of the pot one of the offshoots of the popularity of the the kids was then they start finding he started getting into this area of the commercialization of the children which was something mrs kennedy understandably had a problem with and we're going to be going into that section next [Music] okay from behind the scenes here we are in the area of pop culture and this is the part of the exhibit where we really get to learn about the country really the whole world's fascination with the kennedy family this is actually a record album yes yes first family was very popular you know sold millions of copies but it was somewhat controversial for the time period uh von meter was this fellow who you know started gaining some attention because he was able to mimic kennedy's voice and accent quite well our archives show that jacqueline kennedy did want to try and suppress it and then was kind of dissuaded from making a big deal about it because it would only create more interest in it but she she drew a line with von meeter's life performances you can see from the cover you have this adult you know dressed up like a little kid and you have a baby carriage there so the children did feature um on the album which by today's standards would be considered very gentle but stand-up comedians had never used a president as a subject really let alone their children yeah right yeah political cartoons have a long history but yeah live performance yeah yeah after von meeter appeared on the ed sullivan show uh jacqueline kennedy drafted this memo to her uh personal secretary um of having she saw it she had a serious problem with it because he had a child in the sketch and the child's name was caroline and it's a wonderful internal memo because it really gives you a sense of how angry this type of of commercialization of her children made her she doesn't make his words in this letter yeah she said you know we didn't interfere with the album we don't as she puts it you know i don't give a damn what he does with the album but um that it's an appalling taste that he should make money out of a five-year-old child i would just like him to know that i consider him a rat as far as the children are concerned and but then she leaves it up to her secretary you know either if you think this should be communicated to him do it otherwise just forget about it he did he was concerned and and distressed himself because he never meant to offend the the president and the first lady kennedy had no problem with it he he actually kind of liked it but he's talking about things that may or may not have offended mrs kennedy let's move on this way so these are some of the other pop culture items we have paper dolls plates we have charm bracelets bubble gum cards activity books little cartoon books um and and really there was no um their images weren't licensed in the way that celebrities will license their images so these were unauthorized they were yeah yeah as you see down here we have this doll uh made by madame alexander and they called it caroline there was also an adult doll that came with it called jacqueline and the two dolls were sent to the white house madame alexander was hoping for some type of official approval well she didn't get it so then unlike some other manufacturers who just would have gone on and continued to promote the doll she you know it did go up for sale there were advertisements in um papers during the holiday season in 1962 and you know one of the articles uh said oh some new kennedys are in town madame alexander then came out and tried to say well they have nothing to do with the kennedys they're just dolls named jacqueline and caroline she was really hoping that mrs kennedy would say oh i think these dolls are wonderful and she didn't she she tried to claim that they didn't represent the kennedys but obviously they did they even had wardrobe ensembles that coincided with that dovetailed with the family's interests you had little riding outfits and things like that for the horses so as with some of the paper dolls and those items and the other dolls there was a lot of focus on mrs kennedy and caroline as far as the fashion goes but then you have something else like this this is a board game featuring the kennedys yes and uh it was developed by a couple of editors from the harvard lampoon and it all has to do with brokering power and media image it's very much a reflection of of the influence of television on a persona so it's not just you know you can see a range of kennedys represented here but it includes the two children so you have categories like social standing uh influential friends popular support uh position of importance and it's it's a rather complicated game the the instructions are multi-pages long but you can see you know the the tongue-in-cheek character of some of these cards turn of events cards yes yes um turn of events cards which determined whether you you as a player were one of the kennedys and depending on what card you pulled it determined whether you were going to lose points in a category or gain points so um something like john jr's first word is cuba so he loses influential friends caroline swallows live frog loses personal image so it's it's just you know a great kind of quirky example of uh some of the the products that were produced during the time you know the kennedy that kennedy was in office again something that's not authorized by the first family you go from you know these these commercial items uh to uh you know other parts of the exhibit which focus on um what you know in the midst of this blitz of publicity in these commercial items what people were moved to send the children and in caroline's case that was predominantly dolls you know they the gifts tended to be very separated and you know established gender kind of roles of the time [Music] so here we are at the next exhibit we can obviously see there are lots of dolls here these were sent to caroline as gifts correct yes some by heads of state some by individuals from the various countries that the dolls came from some we don't know who sent them we just know the countries they represent most are dressed in like costumes that reflect the the particular country's national identity i like you know i'm just being subjective in this case because this is a girl i'm particularly fond of she was given she was a state gift given to caroline kennedy by the president of cyprus in 1962 and she's dressed in in a rural costume but i just like you know the heft of her and the glancing eyes are just are just wonderful so you know she she was given dolls so frequently that there were newspaper articles about the size of her her collection when she was given a new doll the phrase i liked best was she has a doll united nations obviously she received so many dolls and this is just a fraction of what was kept what happened to all the other dolls how did they decide what was kept and what else happened to the rest of the dolls yeah the the impression is that state gifts you know from important percentages tended to be hung on to or stored although there are some we know they received and they disappeared it may be that the kids actually played with them and destroyed them uh so a lot of the dolls were were set aside as being special uh caroline kennedy particularly mentions or the the hina doll sets that were given to her as being um special sets that she really caught her imagination as a child other toys that came from you know average you know your everyday citizens sometimes they were kept and stored and ended up just coming directly to the presidential library others were given away i understand that the combination of world dolls with a map of the world was used as part of her geography instruction well you know it's similar to her her grandmother rose kennedy yes rose kennedy had a map set up where her dolls were you know and she was big on you know teaching her kids geography i see that you in this display you have the flags of the different countries along with the dolls so that students coming today can make those same geographic connections yeah yeah that was something we worked with uh the education department tying it into that united nations of dolls you know theme and when we look at some of the outfits of the dolls these are things that are really timeless they were mostly primarily based on national folk costumes which could vary from region to region within a country in locale to locale so you know it was it was how these countries self-identified with their folk traditions so some of these dolls are actually dolls that you can go to any of these different countries and purchasing they still get similar ones like the the doll from guatemala um dolls being produced as souvenirs today you know really pretty much resemble that well seeing all the dolls along with the international flags and markings has really been so informative as was the entire exhibit this really is just a fantastic piece of history that we have here located in boston so i just want to thank you for having me and hosting me and giving me an inside look well it's been great having you here with us to appreciate this history i'm curious having been through the exhibit what is a highlight what sticks out in your mind or is there some deeper reflection about what this exhibit represents for you you know really the thing that stuck out to me most as we walked through the exhibit is that president kennedy and mrs kennedy above all they were a mom and a dad and this really gives us an inside look at president kennedy's last few years of his life getting to spend time with the children and of course we had the conversation about mrs kennedy trying to protect the children when it comes to their exposure to the world the media the press that's just something that a mother does and then also the juxtaposition how she in a way tried to control what was put out in the media in terms of releasing photos getting to pick what the public saw and what the public didn't see very different than this day and age that we're living in of social media so it was just really fascinating to get to see all of this and getting to see the pictures and getting to see some of the old pop culture items it's just a one-of-a-kind exhibit [Music]

Channel: JFK Library

Views: 20,500

Keywords: JFK, Kennedy, Library, museum, history, politics, 1960s, cold, war, camelot, president, presidency, us, john, fitzgerald, jackie

Id: _ohUjrZiY6k

Length: 35min 12sec (2112 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 23 2022