Shaping Up America: JFK, Sports and the Call to Physical Fitness
During your next visit, don’t miss the Museum’s special exhibit, “Shaping up America: John F. Kennedy, Sports and the Call to Physical Fitness.” Original objects and archival materials tell the story of the Kennedy family’s interest in sports and President Kennedy’s re-invigoration of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness as an essential element of his “New Frontier.”
Exhibit highlights include President Kennedy’s golf clubs, a photograph of JFK throwing the ceremonial first pitch at the 1962 Washington Senators’ opening game, a football presented by the 1962 Navy football team signed by players and coaches including Steve Belichick (father of current Patriots head coach), a photograph of Senator John F. Kennedy with Red Sox player Ted Williams and Rose Kennedy’s souvenir Boston Braves “Royal Rooters” button from the 1914 World Series. Younger students will also enjoy the popular Snoopy cartoons of the period encouraging children to do their “daily dozen” exercises.
The exhibit’s physical fitness theme is certainly a timely issue, and one that’s relevant to all ages. As early as December 1960, John F. Kennedy wrote an article for Sports Illustrated about the growing decline in the level of Americans’ physical activity compared with that of other nations, a fact that was especially worrisome during the Cold War period. In this article, and in later speeches as President, he stressed the importance of physical fitness as “a foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation.” He warned readers that if Americans neglected physical fitness, their intellectual and creative capabilities would suffer as well. The exhibit is sponsored by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, creator of the award-winning program “Jump Up and Go!” that helps children, their families and communities become more physically active and develop lifelong healthy behaviors. The exhibit is on display through September 2008.