Kennedy’s New Frontier

When he assumed the presidency in January 1961, the forty-three-year-old John F. Kennedy and his glamorous wife Jacqueline transformed the White House into an exciting and inspiring set of images. Television, still a young medium, was for the first time in virtually every household in America. Three broadcast networks controlled what was seen on the national screen. The news appeared at dinnertime for a fifteen-minute period, and would soon expand to a half-hour. This was followed by “prime-time” entertainment consisting mainly of Westerns and family situation comedies such as Father Knows Best. Heavily censored, these shows provided Americans with an idealized reflection of themselves. Kennedy and his family brought to the news the same telegenic good looks, knowledge of Hollywood and the media, and innate sense of drama and high style found in the nation's entertainment. Novelist Norman Mailer had predicted before the election that with Kennedy in the White House the American frontier myth would “emerge once more, because America's politics would now be also America's favorite movie, America's first soap opera, America's best-seller.”