The largest online presidential archive launched today. Caroline Kennedy, head of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, unveiled the system which makes available to the public an unprecedented number of documents, images and audio files. Archivists in Boston worked four years to digitize over 200,000 pages, 1,200 recordings and 300 museum artifacts, as well as miles of film and hundreds of photographs.
The JFK collection is easy to use. A search on the keyword "Sacramento" yields nine items, including seven photos of then Senator Kennedy visiting the California State Fair in 1956. You'll also see a folder of letters and telegrams urging Kennedy to use presidential authority to stop racial discrimination in federal housing. These are supplemented with related newspaper clippings from The Sacramento Bee and Union.
You can find plenty of other California-related materials in the Archive. For example, a recording of an address Kennedy gave at UC Berkeley in which the President explains the need for the United States and the Soviet Union to collaborate on space exploration. There's also a video of his nomination acceptance speech at the 1960 Democratic convention in Los Angeles.
PHOTO CREDIT: President John F. Kennedy views the Whiskeytown Dam and Reservoir during the dam's dedication ceremony on Sept. 28, 1963. (L-R) Governor of California Edmund G. "Pat" Brown; Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall; President Kennedy; unidentified. Photo by Cecil W. Stoughton.
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