John F. Kennedy’s life was tragically cut short, but so his legacy would endure, his family decided to found a presidential library in his memory. Four other libraries existed at the time, dedicated to Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower, but all were in small towns. JFK’s family wanted theirs to be as practical as it would be symbolic. Jacqueline Kennedy chose a relatively unknown, but very promising architect named I. M. Pei to lead the project.

On this day, October 20, in 1979 the John F Kennedy library opened at the Harbor Campus of the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Kennedy’s memorial stands on the tip of the Columbia Point Peninsula, overlooking the entrance to Boston Harbor.

At the dedication ceremony, JFK’s brother Senator Edward Kennedy said in a speech, “In dedicating this library, we also honor those who helped to make this dream come true”. President Carter followed up on those words, saying “This library, this repository of facts and ideas, will feed history with a permanent record of the dreams of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and also the realization of those dreams.”