Provided the video. Alan one of the joys of my position is there is a heritage to president ial libraries and all of the prior directors of the jfk President Library and museum have been mentors to me, as i have taken on the role. We have announced to the community as a couple of days ago the passing of the very first director of the jfk library. Dan was a member of the Kennedy Administration. It is a special pride that he would share it would glow in him, his advocacy of the importance of the Kennedy Administration and the many treasures we had in our building. I love this photograph of the building, it is nighttime. For those who have not yet come to see us, i believe the library is inspirational in itself and fitting for the life and times and ideas of an inspirational president , the 35th president , president kennedy. Us, youre able to visit will see this building, it is facing toward boston harbor. It is a site that will elevate your thoughts, and as you think about what the nation is all about and your role and it and whether you would answer president kennedys call to service which he issued in his inaugural address, ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country. All of those words reverberate throughout the building and i think everyone who comes through is changed by it. If we go to the next slide, we see what was in the background on the first slide, a flag. You come through the museum and experience a lot of president kennedys origin story, his campaign, his debates against the other candidate, richard nixon. There is an opportunity to really experience who he was through the magic of video and audio clips and things that were part of the administration and achievements therein. You experience all of that and then come out into this atrium. President kennedy himself did not want the focus to be on busts or portraits of himself. It was felt the flag of the United States would simply represent the presidency. You enter the atrium, which is also a memorial space for a fallen president , and reflect upon his life and perhaps ask yourself what if he had lived out his life and served certainly the duration of his term . What could have been . You could reflect on whether you would answer his call to service, how might you either locally or nationally serve the greater interest to create a more just and Peaceful World . All of that is part of the experience of our library and i look forward to reopening and welcoming people from around the nation and around the world to enter with us. It is exciting that we are now reflecting on the 19th amendment and the historic milestones that led up to it and the reverberations of that amendment beyond that. President kennedys administration and their role in advancing womens rights in the nation, this is an exciting thing. Thank you for having me here to speak on that. As you can see from this slide, jfk and womens rights, it was truly a major part of president kennedys platform as a candidate. He spoke eloquently about the importance of womens rights and all human rights. He got bogged down in a lot of issues. I think all presidencies involve a learning curve and the National Issues that pop up are traditionally unpredictable. We can move onto the next slide. In 1960, this is the historic context, women make up one third of the countrys labor force but earned only . 60 on every dollar earned by men. Unlike some of his predecessors, president kennedy did not appoint that many positions in the Kennedy Administration to women and did not have any women in the cabinet itself. I think there is a great clip, and many of us have watched it many times, where one of the reporters on november 8, 1961, make ragged asks president kennedy the democratic platform on which you ran promises to work for equal asks president kennedy the democratic platform on which you ran promises to work for equal rights for women, including equal pay, and to wipe out job opportunity discrimination. Now you have made efforts on behalf of others, but what have you done for the women according to the promises of the platform . And i will say that president kennedys answer, while witty in the moment and wellregarded in the moment, i think there is a play within a play here because his answer as well, i am sure we have not done enough and there is laughter in the audience, i am a strong supporter of equal pay for equal work and we should do better, and im glad you have reminded me of that mrs. Craig. I think if it had been left by itself, it could have been interpreted as a dismissive answer, but i think what we see on the record as the followthrough following that brief question and answer, kennedys response does rise to the occasion and he does take it seriously. Youve got it there, kennedys response. Historians consider three Kennedy Administration initiatives to have been significant in furthering womens rights. Number one, the creation of the president s commission on the status of women. Number two, the order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of gender in hiring federal employees. And the signing of the equal pay act. The equal pay act was the First Federal legislation that sought to put women on equal footing with men. This commission on the status of women is extremely important. At the urging of Esther Peterson, head of the womens bureau of the department of kennedymedy labor, creates the commission with the executive order in 1961. As a side note, if anyone is looking for a Research Project or wants to write a hollywood script, the womens bureau is a film worth making at some point. He appoints Eleanor Roosevelt as chairwoman of the commission and she served in this capacity until her death in 1962. Esther peterson was vice chair and took over upon Eleanor Roosevelts passing. I would say that his relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt is one of the defining relationships of president kennedys presidency. Certainly she is a major factor in his becoming president in the first place. He worked very hard to get her support for him as a candidate. She is enamored with and very supportive of Adlai Stevenson early on, going into the democratic convention. It is by the power of meeting with her in person at her residence in new york, coming out of that conversation, i think she comes around and sees the real kennedy. Side, butis social the depth of his conviction and ideas, and i think it is wonderful that he appoints her as chairwoman of this commission. We have a picture of Esther Peterson with president kennedy, the secretary of labor and the chairman of the Civil Service commission. This is december, 1961. The next slide, he is meeting with the president s commission on the status of women, now underway here in february of 1962. We can flip to the next slide and i will pause here and say a few things. In april of 1962, Eleanor Roosevelt interviews him about the status of women. It starts out with some softball questions, what prompts president kennedy to form the commission . He answers clearly we need to do better and the government needs to lead the way. Eleanor roosevelt then starts to dig a little deeper. Do better how . What exactly are we going to do about this . President kennedy, in some ways, says i was looking forward to seeing the output from the commission to get guidance on where we should focus our efforts. I know that eleanor is not fully satisfied by that. But then she begins to answer his inquiries about where should we focus. She says one of the things we should focus on is childcare. If you cannot do better in terms of childcare, it will be difficult to have women more fully enter the labor force. Certainly, where other countries may have had more success in women entering the labor force, america was behind some other countries, she felt. I should also add in terms of context, this may seem like the obvious idea, there are Many Political opponents during this time who felt that women should be removed from the labor force altogether because it created a greater scarcity of jobs that might be available to men who wanted jobs in the labor force. I think an argument that is similar to some of the antiimmigration efforts going on today, these are not new arguments. They were not invented then. They will not go away anytime soon. I think president kennedys answer to that is that if we need to do better on the economy and grow the markets and the labor force overall, then let us focus on making a better and healthier and stronger economy for all such that while welcoming others into the labor force, we will grow the nation ever stronger. Ultimately, in response to the commission and its report, president kennedy does open more federal jobs and promotions for women. You can see here a memorandum, july 23, 1962, and it is a memorandum to the heads of executive departments and agencies on equal opportunity for women. A quote from that, consideration for any career position must be made solely on the basis of merit and fitness. And so, as we have seen from many other efforts to move our nation towards justice, making things legal or illegal is not the end of the road. A lot of work needs to happen beyond that to eliminate discrimination. But at least some of the legal groundwork is laid in that moment. We can move onto the next slide. Namely, the equal pay act, signed in june of 1963. The act makes it illegal to discriminate based on gender in deciding employees wages. By the way, we have used the term here for the slide, discriminate based on gender. The actual historic term of that era was discrimination based on sex, so just for those interested in the historic language. In his remarks, kennedy noted the act represents many years of effort to call attention to the unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job. This measure adds to our laws and other structure basic to democracy while much remains to be done to achieve fully equality, this legislation is a significant first step forward. As we know today, more steps need to be taken, but i think it is an exciting moment in time. If you go to the next slide, we have the signing of the equal pay act on june 10, 1963. Its an interesting photograph and some might note just by the window on the left side, there is clearly an africanamerican woman and that is dorothy, who was president of the National Council of negro women, for that historic moment. I think that, again, these are struggles that do not end on that moment. It is quite a shame and it was shocking for those who were who remember these moments, but it was only a few months after this signing that president kennedy is assassinated and unable to Carry Forward the legacy. So Lyndon Johnson assumes the presidency and advances many elements of kennedys legacy from that point on. I wanted to make sure people knew some of those historic facts. I encourage you to come to the library and learn more about it. Before that womens bureau, i said before, that would make a terrific movie. Are we ready to jump into some questions . If you would like to ask a question about this or on the library, please put those in the chat box on youtube. We will put them in and we will try and get them in the queue. Lets start with a couple basic ones. In theam curious about, United States over the last couple months, we will be looking at legacy of historical figures. What can you tell us that you are finding at the Kennedy Library, that people are thinking about kennedys legacy . Has it been shifting in the last couple months, the last couple years . Folks will be interested in hearing about that. Alan i think many people point to some pretty concrete measures in terms of the legacy. The establishment of the peace corps as an agency, certainly an inspiring legacy for the thousands who have served as peace corps volunteers and returned with an even greater sense of Civic Responsibility to leave this nation. I think the signing of the Nuclear Test Ban treaty, and i would connect that in some ways with the peaceful resolution of the cuban missile crisis from which we learned a tremendous amount, and the subsequent putting into place things like a hot line between the white house and the kremlin to reduce the risk of Nuclear Escalation and other peacemaking efforts. I think his rhetoric, in so many ways, has inspired generations not only in america but around the world. He was a beloved president. I would say that the entire family,family comedy mrs. Kennedy, as an example, his brother bobby, ted, the sisters as well, did so many things from the Special Olympics to fighting injustice and pushing in the Civil Rights Era to senator kennedys longstanding championing of universal health care. All those things i believe carry on the legacy of president kennedy and the Kennedy Family in incredibly powerful ways. Patrick wonderful. Thank you. Thats a good segue to one of our questions. Are there any members of the Kennedy Family involved with library . Alan we have Caroline Kennedy and her husband, they are involved in the jfk Library Foundation. That is very helpful in supporting the programming and efforts and outreach of the library. And i would say caroline and eds daughter, tatyana, has recently joined the board of the Library Foundation and we are excited that a new generation is picking up the cause of how can we make sure that our repository is truly available to enrich citizens, global citizens, for another 40 years . Patrick are there any members of jfks cabinet still alive . Alan yes. With the passing of dan very recently, there is at least one other and another prior serving member, chuck daly. Uck was appointed to the Kennedy Administration in the summer of 1963 and the administration did not last much longer than that, but he is a living witness to those times. Patrick i think i saw him in the picture that you showed. I know you do a lot with School Groups and students. How many visitors does the museum have and researchers in a regular year . Lets take this year out of the equation. Alan in a regular year, we get about 250,000 visitors a year and 15 of those are International Visitors and the remaining 85 from all over the lake should over the nation. People who are smart to make president ial libraries part of their family road trip destinations. Some come by cruise ship but many come from many different ofntries often with stories direct personal connection with why the president was important to them. One of my favorite things to do is stand in the lobby on different days and ask for, you know, how did you come to choose this place, what did you think of it . They tell me their stories of personal connection to president kennedy, and it is marvelous. I should add that we have so many School Groups who come by the busload that are not even counted in that number, and now that we have had the pandemic disruption, we have had thousands of people participate in our programs virtually. Everything from education about the 35th president to Civics Education in general, but we take great pride in fulfilling the mission that future generations should be inspired by the words and deeds of this president. We are encouraged by the fact that the president ial library and archives headquarters in washington, quite a bit of demand for the educational materials and the resources people are turning to where they ground their teaching, whether you are a new parent who has become a teacher or an actual certified teacher in the classroom, so i imagine theres a demand. Blast every out a tuesday for teachers, many of them schoolteachers. This is a primary source materials and lesson plans to introduce many of these concepts to your classrooms. We try to make it easy for teachers to incorporate these sections of history into their lesson plans. Patrick let me see if i can make my way through a couple more questions here. Research related questions. Are there any more papers about the Jfk Assassination that would be coming out and then secondary to that, what are researchers studying when they come to the library and the archives, if you can share general topics . Alan research is always happening with us. It is more challenging to do it in this pandemic telework environment, we still respond to hundreds of researcher requests constantly. And when researchers are with us, and we are, i believe, the library that attracts the greatest number of researchers and researcher requests of the president ial library, we take pride. Their subjects are so varied. You know, last summer we had a researcher with us for the entire summer who had come from italy and who was doing research on Bobby Kennedy because when bobby was doing investigations into the rackets, that is, the organized crime, as attorney general, reorganized the department of justice to be able to anticipate and better respond to the criminal activities of organized crime. He was the first to publicly name the mafia as an enemy of democracy in so many ways. Italy had not done that. So italy in many ways borrowed their model of better response from bobbys response, so i find it fascinating that somebody from italy would go back into the 1960s, research Bobby Kennedy for answers to how can we do better than italy . Thats terrific. So Many Research requests about mrs. Kennedy, about who she was and the role she played, and her visit