John F. Kennedy plastic Halloween mask
Regular and translucent plastic adult masks with exaggerated features were manufactured representing both President and Mrs. Kennedy in the early 1960s. As of Fall 2022, the Museum has a regular Jacqueline Kennedy mask (2002.024.0001) and a translucent John F. Kennedy mask (2002.033.0001). While this translucent John F. Kennedy mask has no stamps indicating when or where it was made, all of the Museum's other caricature masks were manufactured in France, likely by the same company, in the early 1960s. These include caricature masks of First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, French president Charles de Gaulle, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and Cuban president Fidel Castro. In addition to these adult masks, the Museum also has full children's Halloween costumes representing President and Mrs. Kennedy, produced by Ben Cooper, Inc. in 1963. If you have examples of President or Mrs. Kennedy masks from the 1960s, please let us know at oralhistory@jfk.org. -- Stephen Fagin, Curator