good morning on behalf of the national
park service i want to welcome you to
boston national historic site my name is
john streff
and normally i'm posted at the john
fitzgerald kennedy national historic
site
just a few miles away from here in
brookline but a few times a week during
the course of the summer i come down
here and
give this special tour i'm currently
standing in front of faneuil hall
which has been around since the 18th
century the site of many
political gatherings john f kennedy in
fact is going to give at least two
speeches here
one when he's campaigning for president
and also on the eve of his election
in 1960. so 11 days before john f
kennedy was inaugurated as president of
the united states
he's going to give a speech at the state
house not too far
away from here to a joint session of the
massachusetts
house and senate during the course of
that speech he'll refer to the enduring
qualities of the commonwealth of
massachusetts
linking together the history of the
commonwealth
alongside the history of the united
states of america he'll also talk about
his own uh journey to the high and
lonely office that is
the presidency well that journey really
starts
in the mid-19th century with the mass
exodus of irish catholic immigrants
arriving here as a result of the great
hunger
at john f kennedy's birthplace in
brookline we tend to focus on the
formative year
of john fitzgerald kennedy looking at
the influence that the neighborhood
and his family are going to have on him
but today we're going to go back a
little bit further we're going to go
back to the years
before brookline before the white house
before hyannis port
and we're going to focus on three themes
today the first theme will be
identity we'll talk about how their
sense of being irish and irish american
will inform their sense of self we'll
also talk about
faith not only their religious faith but
also their faith in the character of
american democracy
and lastly we'll talk about community
how is there uh how are the communities
here in boston
going to influence them and how in turn
are they going to influence
uh the communities that are here uh in
boston so over the course of the next 90
minutes or so
we're going to cover almost 300 years of
history walking through the streets
of boston and our next stop is going to
be the irish famine memorial
which is not too far away from here
all right well welcome to stop number
two we are currently at boston's irish
famine memorial this was uh finally
dedicated in the city of boston
in uh 1998 nearly a hundred plus years
after uh the famine occurred normally i
have visitors
take a walk around here we have some
plaques on this side and on that side as
well
we have some statues i give folks the
chance to
read some information and then come back
with their impressions
and we'll talk about the statues first
statues are rather interesting usually
folks come back and look at this statue
and assume
this is the before this is what folks
think of when they think of what
ireland looked like in the mid 19th
century during the course of
the great hunger so what folks are
dealing with back in ireland and then
folks typically
we'll talk about this set of statues
here
as the after once folks arrive in
the united states sometimes folks
comment that
it seems as though things are much
better here than they actually were
and there is some hint of that if you
notice um the
older gentleman actually has shoes on
where the female and the child
do not um so sort of symbolizing that
there is some progress but
simultaneously there's still a fair
amount of poverty
what folks oftentimes notice too is that
the two males are looking
forward into the future meanwhile you've
got the older adult female here
looking back at the way things were
beforehand so
the other thing folks oftentimes comment
about people are oftentimes surprised
about how many people died during the
course of the famine and how many folks
came here
to boston the other comment that folks
oftentimes make is that they're
surprised that the people of boston
actually
sponsored a relief mission to ireland in
the mid-19th century
to help the irish but they're also
oftentimes surprised that once the irish
catholics began to arrive in boston in
large numbers
that level of generosity and empathy
begins to
go down so just a bit of background
information on the famine
uh itself in 1840 there are
approximately eight million people
living in ireland most of these folks
are irish catholics
most these folks do not own their own
land that land is in fact owned
by absentee landlords over in britain by
the mid-19th century ireland for uh
for all for all intents and purposes was
basically a colony
of great britain many folks in great
britain look down on
the irish so again the irish are
subsisting off of potatoes
using that for their nourishment but
also to sell those items
to pay rent to the landlords 1845 the
potato
crop will fail for the first time
there's this blight called
pyrothora infestans that settles on the
potato crop
and literally begins to wipe it out so
the crop will fail in 1845
in 1846 and the first two years are not
too bad in the sense that
local officials are offering relief to
irish peasants
and the british government also is
kicking in as well 1847 things will
begin
to change drastically there's a new
economic administration
in great britain charles trevalion who
had no great love for the irish
was very much a fan of laissez-faire
economics let do or let be he was very
concerned
about giving direct relief to the irish
lest they become dependent on
great britain so great brigade begins to
sort of step back
in terms of offering relief and that's
when you're going to start to see
the major calamity facing ireland so
between 1847 and 1850
approximately a million and a half to
two million people are going to die
and approximately a million and a half
to two million people are going to leave
the country those folks are going to go
to england some will come to canada and
many will come
to the united states and as rose
elizabeth fitzgerald kennedy says
like many irish families our story
starts with the famine
and the couple that with a modern
historian dr kevin kenny at boston
college says
that the central event in irish history
is the famine
i would argue that the famine is a
central event in american history
as well particularly for the city of
boston you're going to see
major demographic changes here in the
city you're going to see major changes
not only in politics
but also in social and cultural
areas as well now as you're probably
well aware
until the late 19th century boston was
in fact
basically an island it's not until the
1880s 1890s
when you start to see all that landfill
occur over in
back bay so your relatively homogeneous
population kind of packed into a small
area in 1847 the population of boston is
approximately 114
000 people and that year alone 37
000 irish catholics will arrive here in
the city of boston so you can imagine
how dramatic
that is going to be not only for the
residents here in boston
but also for the folks who arriving here
uh from
uh ireland um john f kennedy's great
grandparents are gonna be part of this
mass
exodus now their circumstances are gonna
be very very different than what the
average
irish catholic immigrant to boston is
going to
be dealing with but there are certain
parallels as well we'll be talking about
that
as we continue to move through the city
one of things i love about the city of
boston is all these layers
of history here we have a memorial to a
19th century event
just behind us is old south meetinghouse
which of course
was the site of a mass meeting on the
evening of what eventually becomes known
as
the boston tea party we're going to keep
heading down the street here
we're going to walk by what was old city
hall
where john f kennedy's grandfather john
fitzgerald kennedy will become the first
irish-american catholic mayor of the
city of boston
will also walk past the omni parker
house which is the uh
the site of many kennedy family events
and then we'll also walk towards city
hall plaza with a john fitzgerald
kennedy
federal building is as well
welcome to government center obviously
the architecture around us
is significantly more modern than what
we were looking at earlier on
just behind me here is boston city hall
this will replace
old city hall in the late 1960s and
become fully operational
in the early 1970s over on this side you
can see past the construction here
is the john fitzgerald kennedy federal
building named in honor
of the 35th president of the united
states when senator edward m kennedy
was senator here in massachusetts his
office would have been right across
the plaza there so
standing we're standing right in front
of the haymarket
area and normally what's going on here
is every friday and saturday there's a
significant number of folks who are
selling vegetables selling fruit
as well speaking languages coming from a
wide variety of countries and we'll come
back to talk about that
in just a few moments
when the irish were arriving in boston
in the mid 19th century the city
looked very different all of the noise
that you folks are currently hearing
you would not be hearing at all instead
you'd probably be hearing horse-drawn
carriages
folks selling oysters or fish and the
sounds of normal
conversation the two buildings that are
right here
actually would have been here in the
19th century so giving you a sense of
how tall these structures were so if you
imagine
an irish person arriving in boston the
mid-19th century
the tallest structure that they would be
used to would be
their parish church they would not be
used to multi-storied structures
like this also keep in mind many of
these folks are coming from the west of
ireland many of them are extraordinarily
poor many of them are not speaking
english
either and they're arriving here in what
in essence is a brand new
world and as we talked about before
there's a significant amount of
prejudice that these folks
will be encountering the term boston
brahman
brahman referencing the hindu caste
structure
in india the boston brahmanas were the
descendants of those folks
who arrived here in the 17th century
white anglo-saxon
protestants who looked at the irish as
very very different
than them i'm going to read for you
right now a primary source and normally
what i have folks do
is pay attention to the language that's
being used so
this is from 1849 it's from the
committee of internal health
and they're going to be talking about uh
the area down near the financial
district not too far away
from the irish family memorial where we
were earlier on
so here's the quote in broad street and
all the surrounding neighborhood
the situation of the irish is
particularly wretched this whole
district
is the perfect hive of human beings
without comforts
and mostly without common necessaries in
most cases
huddled together like brutes without
regard to sex
or age sense of decency grown men and
women
sleeping together in the same apartment
and sometimes wife
and husband brothers and daughters in
the same bed
under such circumstances self-respect
for thought all high and noble virtues
soon die out
and sullen indifference in despair or
disorder
intemperance and utter degradation reign
supreme
and i typically ask for folks impression
of those
of that language and more often not
visitors sense
a sense of sympathy but also a sense of
judgment that's going on that somehow
the poverty that the irish folks are
going through
is a product of their own character as
opposed to the environment that they
have been
thrown into the irish by and large are
going to settle
in the north end and they're going to
settle in pockets out of safety
out of comfort looking for places that
they can be close to some of their
own so this brings us up to
specifics about the kennedy family
patrick kennedy jfk's great
great-great-grandfather is going to
arrive here in the city of boston
in 1849. now we don't know a lot about
the circumstance of
stances of patrick's emigration from
ireland we do know that he was the
youngest of three brothers
so that he was going to inherit
something there wouldn't be much of
anything for him to have
at all we do know that he came from
county wexford
in ireland which is sort of slightly
south of dublin
he'll leave in 1849 we're not sure if he
goes to england first or comes directly
to america but eventually he is going to
arrive
in boston in 1849 and one of the things
that i love
is he's going to sail into boston harbor
right by the location of what eventually
is going to become
his great grandson's presidential
library and museum
he's going to sail past what is now
boston
logan logan airport and settle on
noodles island he'll take a ferry from
noodles island
and settle over in east boston
patrick kennedy's a little bit different
than most irish
famine era immigrants in the sense that
he had a
skill he was a cooper he could make
things out of wood mostly barrels and as
you might imagine
that's going to prove to be highly uh
important here in the city of boston
with the maritime trade
shortly after he arrives he's going to
get married to this woman named bridget
murphy now we don't know a lot about her
we don't know exactly whether or not
they met in ireland whether they met on
the boat or whether they met here
but we do know that they are going to
fall in love they are going to get
married
and they're going to go on to have three
girls and a son
folks who are growing up in the in the
uh uh
the slums of uh the north end of boston
and east boston
there's about a 60 mortality rate so as
you might imagine
the birth of each child is going to be
greeted with a fair amount of
joy and hope but also trepidation as
well
when the sun is born he will be named
patrick joseph kennedy
after his father when this son is about
three years old
he will be doing just fine but his
father will die
so at that moment in time bridgette
murphy is going to have to go into high
gear
she's going to work in a notion shop
which is sort of a 19th century
equivalent
of a convenience store according to
kennedy family lore
she'll also be doing people's hair
working at people's homes
as well and as patrick later known as pj
gets older and older when he gets to be
about the age of 14
he's going to go to work to help out his
family as well he's going to work on the
docks of east boston
loading and unloading ships all day long
by the time he's in his mid-20s
a business opportunity presents itself
in the form of
a pub now a pub for the irish but also
irish americans here in boston
was much more than a place to go and get
a pint it's also a place
to come together it's almost a community
center of sorts
it's a place to organize keep in mind in
ireland
the irish had no ability to get involved
in politics
in coming here the united states the
irish within just a few years would have
the right to vote
and they're getting involved with the
democratic party so
pj is going to become the barkeep at
this pub
so imagine yourself just arriving here
from county cork in ireland
and it's the 1880s you arrive here with
not that much money at all and you need
information
you need a job so you go in and say to
this gentleman do you know any place
that might have a job around here he'll
say you know what there's a work site
not too far away from here i know the
guy that's there
i can help you out with that well this
person also needs a place to live
there's a rooming house just to cost
away i'll give you that person's name
they can help you out and sometimes pj
will go into his pocket
take out a little bit of money and hand
that to that person
never expecting to see that money again
but he knows exactly
what his father and his mother went
through and is trying to give these
folks
sort of a leg up he's thankful to this
community
for helping to provide him with his
family with all of these
opportunities so people in this area
come to trust pj
and what will happen is pj will become
the ward boss
a low-level political leader helping
folks out here and there
eventually he'll become a state a state
rep
and then a state senator as well now
just on the edge of becoming a state
senator um he will
uh uh meet this woman named mary augusta
hickey
and mary august now we're after the
civil war all right so
um irish americans are becoming more
acceptable
generally speaking to folks not only
here in massachusetts but the country at
large
nearly 200 000 irish-americans are going
to serve in the union army
during the course of the war proving not
only that they're loyal americans
but they're willing to lay down their
lives for a country that oftentimes
disregards them
they're also a significant voting bloc
at this point
so post-civil war you have an entire
generation of people
who were born not in ireland but here in
the united states and they tend to think
of themselves
more as americans than irish mary
augusta hickey
grows up in a suburb not too far away
from here she's part of this new
burgeoning irish-american
middle class her relatives are involved
in local
level business and politics and law
enforcement
and so if you think back to that statue
she's looking forward
as opposed to looking back at the past
she'll still
marry pj they as well will have three
daughters
and then a son they're gonna name that
son
joseph patrick kennedy now notice i said
joseph patrick kennedy
and not patrick joseph kennedy there's
an apocryphal story
that mary augusta hickey thought that
joseph that that patrick joseph
sounded too irish she again is looking
into the future
she wants her children to be thought of
as americans not necessarily
as irish so
joseph patrick kennedy is going to go on
to boston latin school the oldest public
school
in the country and then eventually
harvard university at both those places
he'll represent diversity as an irish
catholic
now pj uh
excuse me joseph patrick kennedy and
mary augusta hickey
remember growing up in east boston and
remember
um at meal times pj
would oftentimes be sitting down to eat
with them and then there'd be a knock at
the door
pj would push back to the table go to
the front door
and there'd always be somebody there
looking for help looking for a political
favor
maybe looking for a little bit of money
and regardless of that person situation
pj would always help them out now to a
certain extent
mary augusta hickey and joe sort of
resented this
joe at one point referred to politics as
a suckers game and although he had a lot
of respect for his father
he oftentimes felt that his father was
being taken advantage of
by people in the community mary augusta
hickey to a certain extent
believed that pj was being drawn away
from the family
the reality is though pj throughout the
course of his life
felt directly connected to this
community in east boston
and eventually winthrop and thought back
on a regular basis to the struggles that
his parents went through
and on a regular basis he's going to
help folks out
so his sense of community is a little
bit different than what joe is thinking
about and what mary augusta hickey are
thinking about in terms
of um looking out for their own
just before pj dies in 1929 he's gonna
call his two daughters in and he's got
this book
uh recording pretty much all the money
he's lended out over the course
of his life he tells his daughters to
dispose of this book
he wants all those debts cancelled now
i've always thought and again this is my
own opinion if joe kennedy ever got a
hold of that book he probably would have
tried to
to track that money down because that
was money that his father worked very
very hard for
but again pj at the time of his death is
not necessarily thinking about getting
that money back
but thinking about sort of closing the
door and getting ready to
move on all right so we've spent a fair
amount of time
talking about the kennedy side of the
family so we're going to switch gears
and talk about an
equally important part of the family
that fitzgerald's
um so we talked a little bit before
about
hey the haymarket behind us and normally
it's a bustling area where lots of
languages and things are being spoken
and you've got folks from all over the
world who are coming to the city of
boston attempting to
eke out a living for their own many of
the folks that own those stalls over
there are hoping to have brick and
mortar shops of
their own so pedaling can be a way a
stepping stone
to the so-called american dream and that
does in fact connect
with thomas fitzgerald now thomas
fitzgerald
is going to be arriving a little bit
after the period of the great hunger
the great hunger ends in 1850 but as you
might imagine
ireland will continue to hemorrhage
people well
into the 19th of the well of the 20th
century
so he'll arrive here in 1855 and he
again is different than the average
famine immigrant as well
he arrives here and he is lucky for a
number of reasons number one he has
family that actually lives in acton
which is west of the city
about 20-ish miles away from here so he
knows people
that are here he's also different in the
sense that he is a dream
he arrives in the united states and
really wants to move out west
and have a farm most irish catholic
immigrants who are coming from an
agricultural background
have no interest in continuing that in
any way shape or form
they would much prefer to get into
industry or peddling owning their own
businesses and moving forward
in that regard so thomas arrives here
works in acton for a little while
as a farm hand isn't making the kind of
money that he really wants during that
time period
so he decides to move in to boston and
actually where he's going to be living
is about where that highway building
office is with the cupola
uh behind us so this is the edge of the
north end we're going to talk more about
that in a moment
so i mentioned pedaling a little while
ago thomas fitzgerald is going to become
a
fish peddler and what he'll do is he
will stop at one of the wharves
uh down on the other side of the north
end which we'll see a little while he'll
pick up his fish
and walk all through the north end
selling the largely
irish catholic population that is
here um he will be doing this for a
while and do quite well for himself
his brother thomas is going to arrive
here
as well now
thomas uh his other excuse me he i
forget his brother's name right now but
he has another brother who's going to be
living here as well
um so thomas eventually is going to fall
in love and marry this woman named
rosanna
cox and they're going to go on to have
eventually 11
children well by the time they're on
their first third child
um keep in mind thomas very much wants
to move
out west well thomas's a brother
approaches him one day and says
hey thomas um i wanna maybe open up some
sort of grocery store
over here in the north end and again
keep in mind thomas's dream
is to move out west and so i oftentimes
ask visitors do you think thomas
opened up the grocery store well of
course he did or otherwise the story
would be over right here right
um thomas in fact does go into business
with his brother
they open a pretty uh a prosperous
grocery store
that doubles as a pub at night serving
some of the same functions as pj's pub
over in east boston place for community
organizing
place for immigrants to get information
place for immigrants to find out where
jobs are
they eventually will come to own several
pieces of real estate over here
as well so again highly unusual for
famine era immigrants
to be quite as successful as they were
so as i said before
rosanna cox we don't know a lot about
her grandchildren
remember that she spent a lot of time
talking about the old country
so one could speculate that she missed
being back in ireland she eventually
will give birth to their 11th child the
11th child will not last very long will
end up dying fairly early on
so um
it's during a very very hot summer that
thomas decides to take
most of the children actually all the
children uh on an outing so they're
gonna get on a train
they're gonna head up to the north shore
it's on that very same day
that someone later on in the afternoon
comes through the north end
and says that there's been a horrible
accident and everyone in that train died
well rosanna cox
apparently hears this news fears that
her
her entire family dies and she has what
we would call
today an aneurysm and collapses on the
floor
when the family comes back they find her
here in the apartment and as you might
imagine they're completely devastated
now what's quite interesting about this
moment in time is that of course
here is a family that's doing reasonably
well but
they're living in conditions um they are
in close quarters
she delivered 11 children and she is
struggling as a woman who's an immigrant
and so you can
make some connections between then and
now so it's at that moment in time
that thomas decides that at least one of
his children
should go on to become a doctor to help
bring child care
to the poor folks who are living over
here in the north end
so the person he picks is young john
francis
fitzgerald so john francis fitzgerald is
going to be the one
to go and become a doctor now john
francis fitzgerald
is born not too far away from here but
ends up working as a young man selling
newspapers over on boston common all
right
boston common right on the edge of
beacon hill deep in the heart of brahmin
country
and in a cold winter's day he recalls
being invited into the
in one of these brownstone homes um uber
wealthy
all right things he's never seen before
he remembers coming into this one room
and seeing nothing but toys and he'd
never seen anything like this
and according to his own account he
decides that moment in time
he's going to work as hard as he
possibly can in order to provide
his own eventual family with these sorts
of things so
selling newspapers he also ends up
giving tours
about the history the revolutionary
history of the north end
going to paul revere's house going to
the north end
he ends up going through high school and
he's all set to go to boston college for
medical school
and then thomas is going to die now at
this point
john francis fitzgerald's older siblings
have sort of disappeared from the
from the picture john francis fitzgerald
is sort of concerned that his family is
going to be split apart
so he goes to the local ward boss
over in the north end and asks for help
well that local ward boss
is going to help him by getting a job
at the customs house which i mentioned
before is was at one point one of the
tallest buildings here in the city of
boston
that job at the customs house is gonna
pay him about fifteen hundred dollars a
year which is a fair amount of money
at that time plus benefits so it's
around this time
he's helping to take care of his family
he's been courting this young woman
named mary josephine hannan it's at this
time
he decides to ask mary josephine hannan
for her hand
in marriage see she says yes she's
living out an acton
they of course will not be living out in
acton what's going to happen
is they're going to be living in the
home not too far away from where that
building was
now as you might imagine when they first
move into that home
there's a lot of adolescent males in the
house and mary josephine hannan
kind of a quiet reserved woman basically
tells john francis fitzgerald
this isn't going to really work out we
need to get a place of our own
so john francis fitzgerald is going to
be able to get a home
not too far away from this house so we
can keep an eye
on his younger siblings but also
maintain
a solid a relationship with his wife and
so what we're going to do right now is
we're actually going to walk
into the north end and walk towards the
site of this house
where a young woman uh named rose
elizabeth fitzgerald
will be born so john francis fitzgerald
and mary josephine hannan are going to
move to
this site it's not the same building but
this is for garden court street
and what's interesting about this area
is we're deep in the heart of uh history
here in the north end
just down the street is paul revere's
home and on this side there's a plaque
to the former spot where governor thomas
hutchinson
lived the sons of liberty were kind
enough to do a little bit of interior
redecorating
of his home they trashed his house he
was forced to move out
to castle island before the revolution
uh
began um so they will move here and of
course rose elizabeth fitzgerald
will be born when they're moving here
john francis fitzgerald still has that
job over at the customs house well
the ward boss who got him that job is
going to pass away
so john francis fitzgerald will make his
first step
into politics at that moment in time
an award boss again is someone who does
a lot of
local level favors for locals helping
those folks out
he does extraordinarily well and that
position goes on to become a state rep
and then a state senator he's a state
senator exactly the same time
that pj is in the state house and while
they're coming from different locales
they will be working together with one
another on a pretty regular basis
eventually john francis fitzgerald will
become a u.s
congressman for this district and he
will be leaving this area
and moving and living a lot in d.c
now it's during this time period you're
going to see a significant number of
immigrants coming into this area mostly
italian immigrants
the irish are going to begin to move out
to the suburbs as it were
there's also lots of conversation about
limiting immigration
having a literacy test for immigration
and honey fitz that's his nickname is
going to be at the forefront of these
discussions he's going to be going toe
to toe with one of the king of the
brahman's henry cabot lodge
lodge is looking to restrict immigration
lodge is looking to
have literacy tests for immigrants but
john francis fitzgerald very
famously says you know what it's all a
matter of boats and a matter of timing
my people came here on boats your people
came here on boats as well
folks for coming here seeking new
opportunities let them come in
now how much of this is him connecting
with his own past his own identity
his own sense of community how much of
this is political expediency
it's probably an equal measure of both
but he's looking out for the folks
in this district now meanwhile back at
home
mary josephine hannan is taking care of
a significant number of children in a
rather hot and crowded
area she is not happy here she is used
to living
in an area with lot more green space so
it's during this time period they're
actually going to move out
to concord for a while and live in a
very different environment
now as you might imagine this is going
to be problematic because
honey fitz is not living in his district
he ends up leaving congress
and in a few years he's going to make
the choice to run for
mayor so before i talk a bit more about
that i want to talk about mary josephine
hannan
mary josephine hannan as i've said
before kind of a quiet
reserved woman much prefers to stay out
of the public eye
stay away from crowds and frankly she
hates
politics so what's going to begin to
happen as rose elizabeth fitzgerald
gets older and she will be her father's
hostess on the campaign trail
so while he's in congress she will go
down to visit him
and have wonderful memories of
encountering the president that time
going and hearing sessions of the house
and
senate and eventually he'll become mayor
of the city of boston so
everywhere he went she went as well she
would play piano he was famous for
serenading the crowds
she would play piano piano while he
would sing to the crowds
she would travel widely with him as well
so in many respects
her political knowledge her sense of
being a public figure
is going to start in this area now
rose elizabeth fitzgerald is only going
to live at this location until
she's about seven or eight years of age
when she's
six years of age she's going to be ready
to go off to school
and right now we're going to walk in the
steps of a six-year-old
rose elizabeth fitzgerald and walk right
to her school the saint john's school
around the corner all right we're
currently standing
outside of the saint john school which
was built in 1895 and this will be the
very first school
that rose elizabeth fitzgerald attends
she will only go to this school for one
year
before moving out and going to public
schools out in
concord this school is still owned and
operated by the archdiocese of boston
and rose kennedy will attend both public
schools along with parochial schools
over the course of her life and this
school sort of represents kind of an
interesting moment
in american educational history
it's during the late 19th early 20th
century that many public schools
will begin to be born these public
schools
early on especially in urban
environments were very much about
americanizing immigrants teaching them
english
teaching them about american customs as
well and not being all that concerned
about them being able to hold on to
their own
cultural identity and beliefs so it's
during this time period
late 19th century when you're going to
start to see a lot of catholic schools a
lot of parochial schools growing up
because many catholics felt as though
their culture and identity was being
stripped from them in some way
shape or form interestingly enough
simultaneously in massachusetts
you're going to see a lot of white
anglo-saxon protestant folks
founding private or independent schools
so they can get their children away from
some of these immigrant children
so you have all these interesting
conversations going on about community
identity and faith that tie back to
education education of course
is very important about the fitzgerald
and the kennedy family side
of the of families they
you'll always see all members of the
family reading in one way shape or form
learning more things um joseph patrick
kennedy will attend
both private and public schools and that
will be true for his children
as well but for rose elizabeth
fitzgerald her faith
is her catholic faith in particular is
very much a central part of her
identity so while she was living here in
the north end and
even later on she will attend a church
not too far away from here called
saint stephen's church which we're going
to go to right now
so we're currently standing outside of
saint stephen's church just opposite us
is the old north church and you might
recognize the gentleman on the statue
there
paul revere won if by land two if by sea
this church is the church that rose
elizabeth fitzgerald
was baptized in she also had her funeral
mass here
as well and she passed away at the age
of 104
in 1995. if you can imagine
the entire street was blocked off the
entire church
was filled uh with mourners filmed
for television and again what's quite
interesting is by the time she passes
away in 1995
she had lived in brookline in england in
new york
and the cape but she came back to this
church
and her funeral cortage will actually go
by
not only the school but her birthplace
as well
same kind of thing is actually going to
happen when senator edward m kennedy
dies in 2009 he will have a funeral
cortage that will pass through some of
these areas
as well so this church was very very
significant to the fitzgerald
family they will attend this church
nearly every single day that they're
here
um in the city of boston
and rose will attend a mass on a daily
basis and the church
is much more than a place to come for
mass once a week
rose elizabeth fitzgerald will come
nearly every single day to mass here
and that will be true uh wherever she is
living even when she was quite infirm
and living on the cape she would have a
priest come
and deliver the eucharist to her on a
fairly regular basis
the church for irish catholics in
america was a sanctuary it was also a
place of safety
it was a place of community uh as well
and in fact there are some studies
that argue that that irish catholics
actually became more devout
here um in america than they were in the
old country
so um this is also kind of to a certain
extent where
two stories come together rose elizabeth
fitzgerald and joseph patrick kennedy
will probably meet when they're
pre-adolescents um
the families used to vacation near one
another in old orchard beach
maine but it's not until they're in
their mid-teens they will start to court
or date and they're gonna date for
nearly seven years and one of the
reasons why that courtship
was so extended was that john francis
fitzgerald
kind of looked down his nose at joseph
patrick kennedy
the fitzgerald family as you've probably
picked up on a
uh early on here is much more prominent
socially politically and economically
than the kennedy family was john francis
fitzgerald
has his eye on a wealthy young man
that's not joseph patrick kennedy but
rose is very much in love with this
young man so after seven years
joseph patrick kennedy is going to
propose and rose says
yes by that point joe kennedy will
become president of his father's bank
over in east boston a small local bank
that catered to working class
and the immigrant populations and at the
age of 25
joe kennedy makes the choice to not live
here in the north end to not
live over in east boston he decides to
locate relocate
to a home in a so-called streetcar
suburb
only four miles away from here but in
many respects
very far away here is joe kennedy
here is joe kennedy
[Music]
here is joe kennedy attempting to start
a new life for himself away from east
boston away from the north end
he is not going to be dependent on his
father's legacy or his father-in-law's
legacy
he wants to be his own man and move
forward into the future
and this move from the north end
from boston out to brookline will usher
in a new
chapter in rose elizabeth fitzgerald's
life she will now become a wife
she will now become a mother and slowly
but surely
she will begin to extend that life as a
public figure
as well so right behind me here is louis
wharf and this would have been the spot
where thomas fitzgerald
would have picked up his fish very early
in the morning to go out and deliver
all over the north end and i oftentimes
think about
what would thomas think if he came to uh
boston in 2020
and saw all of these areas that formerly
were either warehouses
or tenement houses in essence slum
living
at that time now we have a lot of people
moving in
uh to boston and living in these high
end areas
um he'd probably wonder what starbucks
was and why people were charging two or
three dollars for a cup of coffee
but this gives you a sense of how much
the city has changed over the better
part
of nearly 200 300 years
where folks are moving out into the
suburbs now folks are moving
back in and creating vibrant communities
here in the city of boston
that also connect out to the harbor as
well where hundreds of thousands of
immigrants arrived
in the mid-19th century we have the
boston harbor islands
that are a community project connecting
not only the city but the state and the
federal level
as well so again all these
interconnections uh
sort of shifting the sense of identity
here in boston but also community
as well so we have left
the north end behind and we're sort of
heading back into the more
modern portion of the city of boston
we're going to talk a little bit about
transitions as we've said before joe and
rose are going to move out to brookline
and while that's only about four miles
away from here
that mans will be 150 miles away it
represents
a huge transition for both joe and rose
they'll go on to have several children
here in brookline
and then move on to new york after that
joe kennedy will make his money through
finance
and once the great depression starts
he'll begin to shift gears
and associate himself with franklin
roosevelt's administration
he will become the first chairman of the
securities exchange commission he'll
become maritime
commissioner and in 1938 he'll become
the first
irish-american catholic ambassador to
england this will be a huge transition
point for
the family you'll see a famous
photograph
of joe and rose going off for a night at
windsor castle with joe
decked out rose in a lovely dress and a
tiara and at one point
joe turns to rose and says we're a hell
of a long way from east boston aren't we
rosie
obviously recognizing not how not only
how far
they've come geographically but also
socially and culturally as well
and they're not making that journey
alone by this point they have
nine children and these nine children
will become
quite famous in their own right uh as
well
1940 joe kennedy decides to uh
to uh resign from the ambassadorship
frankly he was not a very good diplomat
after all his experience in business he
was used to making deals with people and
things going his way
international affairs is obviously much
more complicated than that
world war ii starts the invasion of
poland in 1939.
many family members are going to come
home joe kennedy's biggest concern when
the war breaks out
is this is going to impact his family
negatively and he's not too far off
with this both jfk and joe jr
end up enlisting in the united states
navy at first jack kennedy works at a
desk job at the office of naval
intelligence
in washington d.c but with the help of
honey fitz
and political connections here in
massachusetts jack
the nickname for john jack's gonna be
able to get a position
as a lieutenant second lieutenant uh in
commanding a pt boat in the south
pacific uh in august of 1943 that pt
boat pt 109 is going to be jammed or
rammed rather
by a japanese destroyer that nearly
wipes out
not only jack but his entire crew jack
kennedy who's extraordinarily unhealthy
very ill is going to be able to save
most the members of his crew
and for the better part of two weeks is
hiding these folks eventually what ends
up happening
is that using that very famous coconut
he writes a message
and through the help of some local
solomon islanders along with australian
intelligence he's able to be
rescued many folks considered him a war
hero right off the bat
jack always said it was completely
involuntary
they sank my boat one year later joe jr
is killed in a mission to take out v2
rockets
in england his death is going to
devastate
the family and it devastates jack
kennedy as well so the family
and the world and the united states are
drastically changed
by the second world war jack and joe
come home the united states excuse me
joe joe jr of course is killed jack
kennedy comes back
uh to the united states after the second
world war and contrary to sort of
popular mythology
joe kennedy senior is not right away
putting pressure on jack to become
involved in politics
jack kennedy thinks about becoming a
history professor he thinks about
becoming a journalist in fact
he is out covering the creation of the
united nations charter
out in san francisco but eventually he
decides he wants to get involved
in public service so there is an empty
seat
here in the 11th congressional district
and that is the seat that his
grandfather
his namesake john francis fitzgerald
once held
but keep in mind jack kennedy has spent
most of his life
out in brookline or across the river in
cambridge or in new york
this is not an area that he knows
particularly well but there are two
people in particular
that know this area quite well his
mother
and his grandfather now jack's a
political neophyte he's 26 years of age
he comes back here and so
rose and honey fitz are going to sort of
show him the political
ropes now there's one thing that jack
kennedy has in common with this largely
working class area
he served his country during the second
world war and again he does not consider
himself
a war hero but he can sort of speak in
the language of these veterans he's
concerned about veterans
issues rose kennedy has something in
common with a lot of wives and mothers
in this area she lost a son
she is a gold star mother and we're
actually standing in front of the
rose elizabeth fitzgerald kennedy gold
star mother
garden as we speak here she can talk
about what it meant
what it means to lose a son but also
talk about this son who's going to do
much more for them
and their children and their
grandchildren john francis fitzgerald
knows this area very very well so
not to mention joe kennedy's money is
going to help to run a very very
successful campaign so
jack kennedy will enter into politics in
1946
and win the congressional seat in
this district now
jack kennedy kind of gets bored uh in
the in the house of representatives the
house of representatives generally
speaking deals more with domestic issues
jack kennedy is much more interested in
foreign affairs he is a hard
core cold warrior is very much concerned
about the soviet threat to not only
western europe
but also the united states and the rest
of
the world 1952
he decides he's going to challenge the
incumbent henry
cabot lodge jr for the senate seat
now eisenhower's in the white house this
is going to probably be a republican
year
so jack realizes he needs to do things a
bit different
his cousin polly fitzgerald comes up
with the idea
of potentially enlisting female voters
here in the commonwealth of
massachusetts
even though most women had the right to
vote by 1920
a lot of women had not exercised that
very much so
polly fitzgerald is going to work with
rose fitzgerald and jack and other
members of the campaign
to begin to put together these uh
kennedy family
teas now these are public events
where uh women will receive personalized
invitations to come meet
mrs joseph patrick kennedy and her son
who's running for the senate
now this was very important for a number
of reasons one
folks outside of boston don't know
anything about jack kennedy he's a
congressman but a lot of folks don't
know him but they do
recognize joe joseph patrick kennedy
and they do recognize rose elizabeth
fitzgerald so these women will get
invitations to these events
it costs them nothing they go to these
events they have coffee
they have tea cookies rose kennedy will
get up and
speak about her son her son more often
not will stay
silent for most of the conversation
that's going on he'll get up say a few
words
and then shake hands with every single
person there
they'll repeat this process over and
over again
all throughout massachusetts in addition
uh jack kennedy is also going to seek
out
um folks within the african-american
community throughout the commonwealth of
massachusetts and
these voters will in fact put him over
the top in 1952.
and they will also continue to replicate
this going forward for other senate
senate campaigns but also in 1960 uh as
well
so it's rose getting very involved these
things but it's also patricia
eunice and jean all of whom will go on
to have
their own careers either in politics or
in philanthropy over the course of their
life
jean of course just passed away a few
short months and she became
ambassador to ireland during the clinton
administration
now rose elizabeth fitzgerald is going
to see a fair amount of triumph as well
of tragedy as well
behind us here is a fountain with a rose
kennedy quote on it
which in essence says if god was to take
everything else away from me
and leave me with only one thing i hope
it would be faith and for rose elizabeth
fitzgerald she's not just talking about
uh religious faith she's also talking
about her faith in the character of amer
american democracy as well
as someone who lived through a good
portion a late portion of the 19th
and early 20th century she sees all
these changes
that are going on she sees the
involvement that not only she
and her immediate family are gonna have
in politics but how many other folks
were inspired by what uh the kennedys
are doing
so it's fitting that we're ending in
this spot
here we have the garden behind us just
behind
uh the camera here is the rose elizabeth
fitzgerald
greenway and what used to be there was
in fact
the john fitzgerald expressway this used
to be all a highway
well the big dig is going to occur in
the late 1990s or
into the early 2000s it's the most
expensive longest lasting
public works program in american history
what is unique about it is that
as far as we know no businesses were
closed no one lost their homes
but it takes all of this elevated
highway that's behind us here
and puts it underneath the ground so you
have the series of
uh highway underneath and then replaced
with garden areas now of course during
that whole process
senator edward m kennedy is one of the
folks who's pushing for funding for this
bill
so it's sort of a big thank you from not
only massachusetts but boston
this area of parkland which is about a
mile and three quarters
going all the way from um the the boston
garden
down to the edge of what's called
chinatown is all parkland
now and you'll see and we've already
seen today folks enjoying
uh this spot um
so again it's quite fitting that we we
are ending here now as i mentioned
before
john kennedy is gonna make a rather
famous speech
oftentimes referred to as the city on
the hill speech and i mentioned that
at the very beginning of the tour and i
want to read some excerpts from that
speech
right now so again this is january 9
1961. i've welcomed this opportunity to
address this historic body
and through you the people of
massachusetts to whom i'm so deeply
indebted
for a lifetime of friendship and trust
for 14 years
i've placed my confidence in the
citizens of massachusetts
and they have generously responded by
placing their confidence in me
now on the friday after next i am to
assume new and broader responsibilities
but i'm not here to bid farewell to
massachusetts
for 43 years whether i was in london
washington the south pacific or
elsewhere this has been my home
and god willing wherever i serve this
shall remain my home
it was here my grandparents were born it
is here
that i hope my grandchildren will be
born i speak neither from false
provincial pride nor artful political
flattery
for no man about to enter high office in
this country
can ever be unmindful of the
contribution this state
has made to our national greatness its
leaders have shaped our destiny
long before the great republic was born
its principles
have guided our footsteps in time of
crisis as well as in times of calm
its democratic institutions including
this historic body
have served as beacon lights for other
nations as well as our sister states
and so it is that i carry with me from
this state
to that high and lonely office to which
now i succeed
more than fond memories of firm
friendships the enduring qualities
of massachusetts the common threads
woven
by the pilgrim and the puritan fishermen
and the farmer
the yankee and the immigrant will not be
and could not be forgotten
in this nation's executive mansion
they're an indelible part of my life
my convictions my view of the past and
my hopes
for the future in the mid-19th century
you have the mass exodus of irish
catholic immigrants who are leaving
ireland
leaving this human calamity getting on
board these tiny ships oftentimes
referred to as coffin ships
one in four of these folks in this
journey over are not gonna make it to
the new world those folks that survive
those folks that make it the kennedys
and fitzgeralds are going to make their
way
through a rather difficult political and
economic and social
landscape i don't think in their wildest
dreams they could have ever imagined
that one of their own
would go on to occupy the highest office
in the land that an irish catholic
would become president of the united
states john f kennedy was keenly aware
of the accomplishments not only of his
own generation but also previous
generations as well
in the summer of 1963 he makes a kind of
symbolic homecoming
to ireland and he is going to speak in
county westward where patrick kennedy
is going to leave in 1849 so i want to
read a brief excerpt from
that speech
so this again is june of 1963 in new
ross and county wexford just a few miles
away from where
patrick kennedy left and here he is
quote when my great grandfather left
here to become a cooper
in east boston he carried nothing with
him except two things
a strong religious faith and a strong
desire for liberty
i'm glad to say that all of his
great-grandchildren have valued
that inheritance so you can see this
sense of identity
and faith and community going back and
forth
across the atlantic and again as i said
before it's quite
fitting that we're ending in this spot
this area very much represents
a confluence of a wide variety of
varieties of identities and communities
and
faith as we walk out here today you can
see folks playing in the fountains
getting grilled cheese
sandwiches going on uh the carousel
and you can think about these folks
thinking about where they are in the
city
where the city is going uh and where the
city has
been and i would hope as you folks go
throughout your own day
whether it's in boston uh wherever it
might be you think about how your own
sense of identity your own sense of
faith
and your own sense of community is a
part of you as you
exist today but as you exist going
forward
so i want to thank you for joining us on
this tour
this morning i hope at some point to
meet you in person if you ever have the
chance to come to the city of boston
please take advantage of everything but
also come visit us out in brookline at
83 beale street
at the john fitzgerald kennedy national
historic site
go visit the john fitzgerald kennedy
library and museum
head out to the harbor islands take
advantage of your national parks your
state parks
and your local parks get outside thanks
very much
take care