Press Releases

Boston, MA– On the 114th anniversary of Ernest Hemingway’s birth, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum today announced that five scrapbooks documenting the childhood of the Nobel Prize-winning author have been made available to the public for the first time in their entirety as digital images. Created and annotated by Hemingway’s mother, Grace Hall Hemingway, the scrapbooks chronicle the first eighteen years of her son’s life and include many never-before-seen photographs, letters, drawings, homework assignments and other keepsakes from his childhood.

Boston MA – President George Washington’s personal copy of the Laws of the United States, First Session 1789, also known as the Acts of Congress, will be on display at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum between May 20 and June 4, 2013. The remarkably well-preserved book includes Washington’s copy of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and other legislation passed by the first session of Congress, complete with his personal annotations.

Boston MA – Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was presented the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™ today by Caroline Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in recognition of the political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence.

Boston MA – The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation today announced that Jamie Baer, a senior at Homestead High School in Fort Wayne, Indiana, has won the national John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Essay Contest for High School Students. Baer’s prize-winning essay tells the story of former New York State Senator Roy McDonald, who, in June 2011, crossed party lines to vote in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. Baer will be honored on May 5, 2013 at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston. She will also receive a $10,000 award for her first-place essay.

The JFK Library staff is assessing the damage caused by yesterday's fire. There was water penetration in a few artifact storage rooms, but damage to the collection is minimal and staff worked overnight to stabilize those areas.

Boston Fire Department officials have concluded their investigation of the April 15, 2013 fire at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and have determined that it was “unintentional.” According to the Boston Fire Department, the most likely cause was “careless disposal of smoking material.”

Boston, MA – The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum today announced that on April 12, 2013 it will unveil a riveting new exhibit about the thirteen days in October 1962 that brought the world to the edge of thermonuclear war. To the Brink: JFK and the Cuban Missile Crisis depicts President Kennedy and his advisers in the throes of deliberation as the United States and the then-Soviet Union stood on the brink of a nuclear standoff. Created jointly by the Kennedy Library and the National Archives and Records Administration, the exhibit premiered at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. last fall. To the Brink is the first special traveling exhibit to be featured in the Kennedy Library’s new 3,000 square foot gallery since the new wing was completed in 2011.

Boston MA – Former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle (Gabby) Giffords was named this year’s recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award™ in recognition of the political, personal, and physical courage she has demonstrated in her fearless public advocacy for policy reforms aimed at reducing gun violence.

BOSTON, MA – PEN New England today announced that Kevin Powers, a veteran of the Iraq War, has won the 2013 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for a distinguished first book of fiction for his critically acclaimed The Yellow Birds (Little Brown).

Boston, MA - Caroline Kennedy today will present the ninth annual John F. Kennedy New Frontier Awards to Stacey Abrams, Georgia House Minority Leader and the first woman to lead either party in the Georgia General Assembly, and Veronika Scott, founder of The Empowerment Plan, an innovative humanitarian project that is creating a new garment industry in Detroit by hiring the city’s homeless women. The awards will be presented at 5:30 p.m. this evening during a ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum [watch live webcast].

The 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 13 days that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, is being marked with several new, interactive and online activities and programs aimed at reaching a younger audience, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library announced today.

The National Archives and Records Administration and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library are releasing an additional seven boxes of material (more than 2,700 pages) from the Robert F. Kennedy Papers, housed at the Kennedy Library in Boston, including documents relating primarily to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), and the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, two of Boston’s preeminent cultural institutions, have partnered to mark the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 13 days in October 1962 that brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

On September 12, 2012, the Museum at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library will unveil a special new installation featuring Freedom 7, the iconic space capsule that U.S. Navy Commander Alan B. Shepard, Jr. piloted on the first American manned flight into space. Celebrating American ingenuity and determination, the installation opens on the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University where he so eloquently championed America’s manned space efforts.

Boston, MA – The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum today announced that it has processed and made available for research the personal papers of Warren I. Cikins, who served in the White House from 1962 to 1966 during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. The papers, a collection of approximately 70 cubic feet, document Cikins’ professional and volunteer work in civil rights, intergovernmental relations, equal opportunity employment, health care policy, criminal justice, and prison industries. The documents in the collection date from 1922 to 2011.