Thanksgiving in Boston

Back from a Thanksgiving holiday visit to Boston. Highlights of the weekend included a visit to the (relatively) new John F. Kennedy Library and Museum on UMass’s Boston campus, and top-notch no-frills seafood at Jasper White’s Summer Shack, including corn on the cob and steamers by the pound.

In the Kennedy museum, which was roughly designed to match rooms and hallways in the White House, many people took photographs of each other in front of the presidential seal, while I was fascinated by Jacqueline Kennedy’s original trompe l’oeil closet doors. Walking through the exhibits, one got a keen sense of just how important visual culture was in defining the public life and presidency of America’s first 20th century-born president.