On May 26, 2021, historian Philip Goduti explored John F. Kennedy’s experiences before his time in public office by examining letters, diaries, and newspaper articles that JFK wrote during this coming of age period in an effort to delve deeper into how those events shaped him as a leader.

Before he was President of the United States, John F. Kennedy had a coming of age journey. He toured Europe on the brink of war in 1937, served in the Pacific campaign suffering “grievous wounds,” as he wrote later, that followed him for rest of his life. In 1943, he reported on the United Nations peace effort in San Francisco, and witnessed the destructive nature of war as he walked among the battle torn cities and countryside of Europe in 1945.

Philip A. Goduti, Jr. is a teacher, professor, historian, and author. He has been an Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at Quinnipiac University and a full-time history teacher at Somers High School in Somers, CT for the past twenty years. Goduti is pursuing his PhD in United States History at the University of Connecticut with a focus on civil rights and foreign policy post 1945. His dissertation is examining how emotion shaped John F. Kennedy’s decision making as President of the United States.

Goduti has published books and articles examining the history of civil rights and United States foreign policy in the 1950s and 1960s. In addition to his books, he has published reviews in the American Historical Review, Journal of Cold War Studies, and The Historian and has contributed to Oxford University Press: American National Biography Online series. Goduti contributed to Kennedy: His Life and Legacy (2013) with an article titled “The Young President.” As a freelance writer he wrote for the Providence Journal-Bulletin, Middletown Press, and Hamden Chronicle.

This program is co-hosted by Storrs Library and Longmeadow Historical Society, and sponsored by Mass Humanities and the Bridge Street Fund.

For more information on programs at Storrs Library, please visit www.longmeadowlibrary.org.