MUSEUM'S POLITICAL COLLECTION GROWS

CHERISHING OUR VALLEY              2013


When I was a student at USC, I worked on the political campaign of Illinois Senator Adlai E. Stevenson. As the Democratic convention approached in the Los Angeles Sports Arena, all of us began to see the enthusiasm for Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy rising. When President Kennedy won the nomination, I was among the students who invited him to speak at the University. He accepted and today on the steps of the Doheny Library there is bronze plaque marking the occasion.
Kennedy began his speech by calling the University of Southern California, the "Harvard of the West." By the end of the speech, there were discarded Nixon buttons all over the lawn.  About a month later President Nixon, then Governor of California, spoke on the campus. There were no Kennedy buttons on the lawn.
On election day, my mainly Republican fraternity brothers were tying me up in the cellar of the SAE house to keep me from voting, when I showed them my absentee ballot stub in my wallet. I had already voted.
The Museum of the San Fernando Valley collects and preserves, and will eventually exhibit political memorabilia (local, state and national).

President John F. Kennedy and Governor Edmond G. Brown -  Gift to the Political Memorabilia Collection of The Museum of the San Fernando Valley from Gary Fredburg 2009