National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior John F. Kennedy National Historic Site Brookline, Massachusetts JOHN F. KENNEDY’S BIRTHPLACE A PRESIDENTIAL HOME IN HISTORY AND MEMORY JOHN F. KENNEDY NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE Historic Resource Study JOHN F. KENNEDY’S BIRTHPLACE A Presidential Home in History and Memory A Historic Resource Study by Alexander von Hoffman National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior August 2004 Cover illustration: Rose Kennedy at Dedication Day Ceremony, shaking hands with spectators, May 29, 1969 (NPS Library photo 69-33-5-8). Courtesy John F. Kennedy National Historic Site. Table of Contents List of Figures............................................................................................................................v List of Tables ...........................................................................................................................vii Foreword.................................................................................................................................. ix Acknowledgments.................................................................................................................. xi Introduction ..............................................................................................................................1 Chapter I Home, Hometown, and Urbanism: Brookline, Coolidge Corner, and the Neighborhood...............................................................................................................7 Chapter II The Social Identities of Rose Fitzgerald and Joseph Kennedy....................................69 Chapter III Kennedy Family Life and the American Home.......................................................... 107 Chapter IV John F. Kennedy National Historic Site and the Problems of History and Memorialization...................................................................................................... 139 Appendices A. Occupational Categories.......................................................................................... 171 B. Status of Collections, John F. Kennedy National Historic Site, February 2003 Janice Hodson, Supervisory Museum Curator .................................................... 175 C. Anna Coxe Toogood, Historic Furnishings Plan, John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site, 1971.................................................................................... 195 Repositories Consulted and Note on Further Research............................................ 287 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................... 293 iii iv List of Figures Figure 1. Coolidge Corner area, 1874.................................................................................15 Figure 2. Coolidge Corner area (north), detail, 1893. ......................................................16 Figure 3. Coolidge Corner area (north), detail, 1907. ......................................................17 Figure 4. Coolidge Corner area (north), detail, 1913. ......................................................18 Figure 5. Coolidge Corner area, 1874.................................................................................24 Figure 6. Coolidge Corner area, detail, 1893. ....................................................................25 Figure 7. Plan of Building Lots, Beals Estate, Brookline, 1897........................................30 Figure 8. Coolidge Corner area, detail, 1900. ....................................................................31 Figure 9. Coolidge Corner area, detail, 1913. ....................................................................32 Figure 10. Abbotsford Road area, detail, 1900 ....................................................................35 Figure 11. Abbotsford Road area, detail, 1913 ....................................................................36 Figure 12. Abbotsford Road area, detail, 1927 ....................................................................37 v iv List of Tables Table 1.1 Non-Domestic Wage-Earners on Beals And Stedman Streets, by Birthplace, 1910 and 1920....................................................................................30 Table 1.2 Domestic Wage Earners on Beals And Stedman Streets, by Birthplace, 1910 and 1920 ………………… ..............................................31 Table 1.3 Beals and Stedman Street Wage Earners, by Occupational Groups, 1910 and 1920................................................................33 Table 2.1 Abbottsford-Naples Roads Wage Earners, by Occupational Groups, 1920.................................................................................36 Table 2.2 Non-Domestic Wage-Earners on Abbottsford-Naples Roads, by Birthplace, 1920................................................................................................37 Table 2.3 Domestic Wage Earners on Abbottsford-Naples Roads, by Birthplace, 1920................................................................................................37 vii Foreword John F. Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts preserves and interprets the 1917 birthplace of the nation's 35th president. The house was the first home shared by President Kennedy's father and mother, Joseph P. and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, from 1914 to 1920. The historic house, grounds, collections, and neighboring Brookline community document the formative years of the prominent Kennedy family and permit exploration of the early influences which shaped the character and ambitions of John F. Kennedy. The site was repurchased by the family as a memorial to President Kennedy in 1966 and refurnished to its circa 1917 appearance under the close supervision of the president's mother, based on her recollections. Many pieces in the collection are original to the family's tenure in the house; others are Kennedy family pieces, appropriate antiques, or period reproductions selected for interpretive value. Following the refurnishing, the Kennedy family donated the birthplace to the National Park Service in 1969. (In May 1967 Congress passed legislation authorizing the Secretary of the Interior to acquire the Brookline property.) The National Park Service commissioned this study for two reasons. The first was to situate Joe and Rose Kennedy within Brookline’s Beals Street neighborhood to provide a better understanding of the spheres in which the Kennedy family members lived, worked, and played. The second was to analyze the significance of the creation of the site as a memorial to the recently assassinated president. This study gives the National Park Service an enriched perspective on the Kennedy years at Beals Street and provides essential documentation for interpreting their home as part of a neighborhood. Using census data and other primary documentation, the study reveals in detail the socio-economic status of the Kennedy neighbors and indicates the level of the family’s social interaction within the neighborhood. The parents limited their participation in the local neighborhood to such activities as household shopping, attending church, and sending their children to local schools; their intellectual interests and social connections remained more cosmopolitan, and were generally focused outside of Brookline. This is the first historical study to place the creation of the site within the larger context of the US preservation movement and the establishment of two other important presidential homes: George Washington Birthplace in Virginia, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s home in New York. The study also incorporates substantial new research on the individual items that Rose Kennedy chose to furnish the home, including items she chose not to include. This section of the study makes clear that the John F. Kennedy Birthplace is both a product of the larger preservation movement and a very personal expression of the president’s mother. The work was undertaken by Alexander Van Hoffman, a senior research fellow at the Joint Center for Housing Studies at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University. His previous scholarship has included an analysis of the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston, ix Local Attachments: The Making of an American Urban Neighborhood, 1850 to 1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994). Park staff provided essential access to source material, critical reviews of drafts, and new research on objects in the home. The study and its findings will assist the park as it pilots and incorporates new educational and public programming. Myra Harrison Superintendent John F. Kennedy National Historic Site July 2007 x Acknowledgments The author would like to acknowledge first and foremost the invaluable assistance and hard labor of Elise Madeleine Ciregna, who indefatigably, faithfully, and diligently researched, drafted, and edited material for this historic resource study. Without her it is difficult to see how the study could have been accomplished. The author owes a special debt of gratitude to Louis Hutchins, the Project Manager, for his patience, wisdom, and good humor in seeing this historic resource study to its conclusion. Also the author thanks the National Park Service staff and specialists for their careful reading of drafts of the study and helpful suggestions that improved the text immeasurably: Christine Arato, Lee Farrow Cook, Janice Hodson, Carole Perrault, Nancy Waters, and Paul Weinbaum. Thanks as well to Nancy Jones for helping