A small archive of ephemera from the 25 November 1963 state funeral of President John F. Kennedy at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C.
Washington, DC: 1963. This item is a small archive of ephemera from the 25 November 1963 state funeral of President John F. Kennedy at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C. This collection includes: one entrance ticket with seating assignment; a printed missal booklet titled The Mass on the Day of Burial, printed in purple, black and red and bound in wire-stitched, textured gray paper wraps; 20 mass cards featuring Kennedy’s image on the recto, most featuring an excerpt from his inaugural address on the verso; two printed thank-you cards from Mrs. Kennedy; a Funeral Services announcement on black-bordered mourning stationery with an embossed presidential seal. Condition of all these documents is excellent, clean with no loss or damage.
The sense of loss lingering in these mementos was overwhelmingly manifest in the moment. Among the approximately 1,200 guests for the funeral mass at St. Matthew’s were 220 foreign dignitaries from 92 countries, five international agencies, and the papacy, including 19 heads of state and government and members of royal families. This was the largest gathering of foreign statesmen in the history of the United States.
Before his burial Kennedy's remains were taken to the center of the East Room and set upon the same catafalque used at Lincoln's funeral. The following day the coffin was taken to the Capitol rotunda, where more than 250,000 people filed past. On November 25, the day of the funeral, a horse-drawn caisson carried the casket down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. There Mrs. Kennedy and the mourners, official and personal, waited. They walked with the procession—military escort, band, and the symbolic riderless horse with boots reversed in the stirrups—eight blocks to St. Matthew's Cathedral, where the funeral service was held.
After the service, the caisson carried the president's remains to their final resting place in Arlington Memorial Cemetery. There, in one of the most poignant images of the twentieth century, Kennedy’s three-year-old son was famously photographed saluting his father’s casket.
Less than three years before, on 20 January 1961, after taking the oath of office and becoming the 35th president of the United States, Kennedy delivered a 14-minute address of 1,355 words. Kennedy’s inaugural address ranks among the most moving in the quarter-millennium-history of the American republic. It also proved regrettably prophetic. Of the tasks and goals he set for the nation in his intentionally short address, Kennedy said "All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, not in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." His administration proved to be 1,037 days, cut short by assassination on 22 November 1963.
One might be tempted to blame the profound, romanticized sense of loss associated with Kennedy’s presidency on the reputational benefits conferred by martyrdom. But there does not seem to be a similar, lingering sense of romance attributed to the loss of Presidents Garfield and McKinley. It is instructive to remember that Kennedy had won an incredibly close election with just 49.7 percent of the popular vote, but such was the electrifying effect of his presidency and personal charisma that by the middle of 1963, 59 percent of Americans surveyed did not just support Kennedy, but claimed that they had voted for him.
Sources: The White House Historical Association, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. Item #007878
Price: $1,250.00