This home looks as it did when the Kennedy family lived here, from 1914 to 1920. The objects in the home will give you insight into how people lived during this era.
For example, the telephone you see on the left was manufactured by Western Electric between 1915 and 1920. This type of telephone is named the “candlestick” phone because of its shape. To use it, the caller would hold the “candlestick” to their mouth to speak into, while holding the receiver up to one ear to hear the other party. You may notice that the phone has no numbers to dial; to place a call, the caller would speak to a switchboard operator, who would then call the desired number.
When John F. Kennedy was born in 1917, there were roughly 1.3 million telephones in Massachusetts, one phone for every three people in the state. The hallway telephone is one of two in the home; the other sits in the parents’ bedroom upstairs. Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. worked as both a bank president and as an assistant general manager at a Quincy shipyard when he lived on Beals Street with his family. Having two telephones at home would have assisted him in operating these businesses.
Joe Jr., around ten years old, poses with his younger brother Jack, around eight years old, in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where the Kennedy family often spent their summers, circa 1925. The two brothers were close as well as competitive.
The National Geographic Magazine. February, 1917.
Contents:
16 Pages of Photogravure.
Our Foreign Born Citizens
39 Illustrations.
Prizes for the Inventor, Some Problems Awaiting Solution by Alexander Graham Bell
7 Illustrations.
Little Citizens of the World
16 Photogravure Illustrations.
Bohemia and the Czechs by Aleš Hrdlička
With 25 Illustrations.
Published by the National Geographic Society. Hubbard Memorial Hall, Washington, D.C.
Border text:
Volume XXXI. Number Two.
$2.50 A Year. 25 Cents A Copy.
This painting hangs over the bed in which John F. Kennedy was born. A similar piece hangs over the other bed in the room. This is a reproduction of Renaissance painter Raphael's 1504-1505 work "The Madonna of the Grand Duke,” which got its name from Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who owned the painting in the 18th century. Since then, the painting has been housed at the Palatine Gallery in Florence, Italy.
It’s possible that Rose Fitzgerald viewed the original while touring Europe with her father in 1908, when she was eighteen years old. During that trip, she and her father had a private audience with Pope Saint Pius X. Mrs. Kennedy later attended the coronation of Pope Pius XII with her husband and children in 1939.
Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was a devout Catholic, and felt it was important to imbue her children’s upbringing with her faith. The paintings in this bedroom are some of the few reminders of her piety in the Beals Street home.
Mrs. Kennedy used this boudoir as her office. She said that Mr. Kennedy had his office in Boston and that as manager of the house, she wanted her own office in the home. Pictures of her husband sit atop the desk.
Transcription:
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
born Brookline Mass. (83 Beals Street) May 29. 1917
Has had whooping cough. measles – chicken pox
Had scarlet fever. February 20. 1920
At City Hospital Boston . with Dr. Hill . Dr. Reardon
took care of ear.
Has had mumphs [sic].
German measles 1928
Schick test 1928
Bronchitis occasionally