Collections of the Presidential Library : Ernest Hemingway Collection

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum collects, preserves, and makes available primary-source materials, in all formats, on the life and times of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States. The Library's holdings include the papers of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Joseph P. Kennedy, and Rose Kennedy, as well as close to 400 other collections: those of Kennedy family members, Kennedy administration officials and associates, and pertinent individuals, authors, and institutions. The John F. Kennedy Library also houses the Ernest Hemingway Collection and the John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Oral History Collections.

Ernest Hemingway Collection

The Ernest Hemingway Collection pursuing study of Hemingway and his writing. The Hemingway Research Room's primary mission is to serve researchers, then educational groups and the public in general. The room isn't open for general interest or browsing, rather, for researchers who require the use of the Library's unique manuscript, audiovisual, and documentary holdings related to Ernest Hemingway.

While Ernest Hemingway and President Kennedy never met, President Kennedy more than once expressed his admiration for Hemingway and his work. In the opening sentence of his own Pulitzer Prize winning book, "Profiles in Courage", Kennedy cited Hemingway’s description of courage, writing that, “This is a book about the most admirable of human virtues — courage. ‘Grace under pressure,’ Ernest Hemingway defined it.”