The John F. Kennedy Condolence Mail consists of those documents sent to Mrs. John F. Kennedy from November 1963 to June 1965 to express sympathy and respect on the occasion of the president's death. People from different nations chose to honor the president and send condolences to Mrs. Kennedy in a variety of forms: hundreds of thousands of letters and cards; artwork; signed condolence books; contributions to the Kennedy Library and charitable causes; editorial cartoons from newspapers; essays; eulogies; gifts to Mrs. Kennedy; mass and prayer cards; memorial services; suggestions for permanent memorials in honor of the president; personal remembrances; poetry, both original and traditional; publications such as yearbooks dedicated to President Kennedy or news clips and articles on his life and career; resolutions of towns, cities, and states; sermons, stories for John and Caroline; and telegrams.
There are several categories of letters: letters from adults and from children, from the United States and abroad; letters from organizations and prominent people; and letters with attachments or a salient characteristic that have been sorted by the staff into one of the other categories listed above. Originally there were over 830 linear feet of general condolence mail. None of this mail was foldered or sorted, and for the most part the only identification was a number for each box. Approximately 700 cartons originated dfrom November 22, 1963 to February 1964. The remaining 100 or so were written during the next fifteen months, particularly during November 1964 on the first anniversary of the president's death.
In addition to the general condolence mail, there were two other sizeable types of material in the original collection: 1) nearly 200 more federal records cartons of large Catholic mass cards, dedicating prayers and religious services in memory of John F. Kennedy; and 2) 177 cartons of blank envelopes and printed thank you cards that had been ordered to respond to each of the nearly one and a quarter million people who wrote to Mrs. Kennedy and John and Caroline. From the envelopes and cards the staff saved a four box sample of the different types and disposed of the rest. A similar procedure was used for the mass cards. The processing archivists selected one example of each type of mass card and saved six feet for the collection. Most of the remaining mass cards were donated to the Boston College Library Special Collections, Catholic Liturgy and Life, 1925-1975.
In the 830 cartons of unsorted general mail, the staff found extensive duplication and considerable material that they decided was not of enduring value and interest. Therefore, they sampled the mail according to the following plan: 1) Save All - documents on contributions to the library; essays; foreign mail; historic photographs; memorial service programs or accounts; personal memories of John F. Kennedy; poems; prayers; resolutions; sermons; songs; suggestions for a memorial to the president; and VIP mail. 2) Save Meaningful, Good, or Representative - adult letters, children's letters, cards, and art. In the case of cards the staff aimed to save one of each type of card.
As work on the mail progressed the archivists began to find certain patterns that led to the creation of other categories because of their importance or scarcity. They were struck by the number of people who encouraged Mrs. Kennedy to serve in public office and added the subject file "Suggestions to Mrs. Kennedy for Public Office." Given the active historical discussion on the president's assassination, staff members thought it important to save those letters that presented information or theories on the assassination; there were not many. The archivists were particularly struck by the number of moving editorial cartoons that people sent Mrs. Kennedy from their newspapers, so they created a separate category for this type of tribute. Not surprisingly there was a nearly total absence of any letter or comment critical of the president, his policies, or his administration.
In the poetry category there was one poem that had such widespread and popular appeal that Mrs. Kennedy received literally hundreds of copies sent by people who were touched by its sentiments: "Special Delivery from Heaven." Barbara Jones, a fifteen year old schoolgirl, wrote this poem, which was ultimately disseminated throughout the United States and the world. Because of its importance, the staff has collected several folders of information on this poem.
At the point where it became evident that many more people wrote poems than sermons, songs, or essays, the staff decided to save only a sample of the poems found in the collection. In a similar vein, the number of letters from certain countries, e.g. Canada, United Kingdom, France, and Federal Republic of Germany, were so extensive that during processing the archivists sorted them to preserve only those with significant or representative value. For smaller holdings of foreign mail, all items were saved. To facilitate research, the archivists grouped all foreign mail under one category (Foreign Mail). Therefore, with some minor exceptions in Art and VIP Mail, nearly all foreign mail may be located in one series, and conversely all the other series contain letters from those in the United States.
There are a number of other collections at the library which hold materials related to those in the Condolence Mail. The main file with similar documents is the John F. Kennedy Tributes collection, which holds those condolence letters to Mrs. Kennedy and tributes to the president that were sent directly to the library in 1964 and 1965, as well as all items of this nature sent after June 1965 to the present. There are also twenty boxes of Condolence Mail in the Robert F. Kennedy Attorney General Papers. Ten of these boxes are condolence letters sent directly to Attorney General Kennedy, and ten are a sample of the mail being sent to Mrs. John F. Kennedy from November 1963 to February 1964. Finally, the Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Personal Papers contains a series of Condolence Mail that was maintained by Mrs. Kennedy's staff.