Ernest Hemingway and the JFK Library

October is American Archives Month! We’re celebrating the work of archivists and the importance of archives with a series of blog posts about the Presidential libraries. The records created by Presidents while in office will become part of the National Archives, and eventually will be used by researchers. Here’s how it happens!

Today’s post comes from Alley Jordan, graduate research intern for the National Archives History Office in Washington, DC.

Designed by I. M. Pei, the John F. Kennedy Library stands in Boston, Massachusetts. The library was originally supposed to be close to Harvard University in Cambridge but the site was moved to South Boston. Ground was broken on June 12, 1977, and the building was officially dedicated on October 20, 1979.

Among the library’s many Kennedy materials rest, strangely enough, manuscripts of the great American author Ernest Hemingway. The library’ Ernest Hemingway Collection contains 90 percent of Hemingway’s manuscripts.

Hemingway and JFK bore no strong connection with one another. In fact, the JFK Library’s possession of the Ernest Hemingway Collection came about by sheer happenstance.

Following the Cuban Revolution, which began in 1953 and lasted until 1959, Hemingway left Cuba—his home for 20 years—and returned to the United States.

When Hemingway died in 1961, much of his materials were still in his home in Cuba, called Finca Vigia.

After the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, relations between Cuba and the United States were especially tense. But President Kennedy’s intervention allowed Hemingway’s widow, Mary Hemingway, to enter the country in order to retrieve the writer’s personal effects from Finca Vigia.

According to the JFK Library, “The donation was settled in 1968, and four years later Hemingway materials began arriving at the library in Bonwit Teller shopping bags, cardboard boxes, and dented trucks with French and Cuban labels. The Hemingway papers were first opened for research at the library’s temporary facility in 1975.”

The official Hemingway Room at the JFK Library was opened in 1980 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Hemingway’s son Patrick.

The Hemingway Room evokes rooms in the Finca Vigia with Hemingway’s original belongings, such as a lionskin rug, the author’s personal library, and original artwork.

Among the many manuscripts of Hemingway in the library rests hundreds of photographs of the author from his travels around the world.

Ernest Hemingway 1923 Passport Photograph. (National Archives Identifier 192693)

Included are Hemingway’s 1923 passport, photographs of him and his beloved cats in Cuba, portraits of him in Italy, and childhood photographs.

Hemingway left his effects in Cuba as revolution erupted, and his home remained intact even after President Kennedy’s death.

At the JFK Library, visitors can not only celebrate and explore one of America’s Presidents, but they can also explore the papers and mementos of preservation of a beloved American writer.

Learn more about the Hemingway Collection at the JFK Library’s website and in Prologue.

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