(KENNEDY, JOHN F.) Mini-album with 14 snapshots made of a television screen depicting Kennedy's presidential inauguration. The album opens with the previous president and vice president, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, arriving at the ceremony in top hats. The sequence shows Kennedy seated next to Eisenhower, who confers with the young president-to-be and his wife, while Justice Earl Warren looks on, behind them. A smiling Kennedy and his vice president, Lyndon Johnson, are shown on the dais; as is Jacqueline Kennedy, who is fashionably dressed in a pillbox hat. Close-ups of Jackie show her modestly gazing off camera and then beaming directly into the camera's eye. The final 3 images depict Kennedy and Johnson solemnly taking the oath of office. Silver prints, nearly 2 1/2x4 inches (6.4x10.2 cm.), with the date Jan. 1961 stamped on the top margin. 8vo, leatherette album with plastic ring binding, creased on front cover; prints are housed in plastic sleeves. 1961
A rare photo artifact depicting America's first telegenic President that reflects the television's remarkable new role in presidential politics. The first Nixon-Kennedy debate, which was aired the evening of September 26, 1960, rebalanced the political scales, making this first televised encounter between presidential candidates the hottest thing in the political landscape since the campaign button, which was introduced 100 years earlier!
By 1960, nearly 90% of American households had televisions. As a result, the number of viewers who watched the debate was an astonishing 74 million. Those that listened to the challengers on the radio thought the incumbent Nixon had won. However, the majority of viewers, who chose to watch the debate on TV, saw a tanned and exuberant Kennedy outshine the wan, recently hospitalized Nixon, and believed Kennedy was the clear winner. Indeed, even Kennedy himself said he won the election that night.
