Madison in the Sixties – January 20, 1961 In 1960, Sen. John F. Kennedy didn’t carry Madison in the Democratic presidential primary or Wisconsin in the general election. But his candidacy still had a profound local impact. His primary campaign against Sen. Hubert Humphrey created enough Badgerland bitterness to last for years, even damaging the […]
Madison in the Sixties, the end of March
Madison in the Sixties – the end of March 1960 More than a thousand students pack old Music Hall past legal capacity for Sen. John F Kennedy’s last local appearance before the April 5 presidential primary. University workers lock the doors, leaving several hundred students out in the snow – until one of them finds […]
Madison, March 2, 1960
Madison, March second, 1960. It’s Ladies Day in the Wisconsin Presidential primary, as John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey send senatorial sisters and a spouse as distaff surrogates. Three of Kennedy’s four living sisters, half-way through a five-day tour of ten counties, stay overnight at the Edgewater, then embark on an 11-hour campaign of coffee […]
Madison, the third week of February in the sixties
1960 Sen. John F Kennedy begins his Wisconsin presidential primary campaign at 5:30 in the morning of February 16, shaking hands with about a third of the 1,500 first-shift workers arriving at the Oscar Mayer company plant gates. With neither hat nor gloves, his only concession to the frigid February weather, a topcoat and scarf […]
Madison, fourth week of October – Kennedys come calling
Oct. 23, 1960 – Democratic presidential nominee Senator John F Kennedy gets a rock star welcome on his only Madison campaign appearance, the third of four stops on a whirlwind day in Wisconsin. He steps out of his twin-engine Corvair to a cheering crowd of several thousand at municipal airport, and steps into an open […]
Madison Mourns JFK
(WORT) — Fifty-two years ago, the nation was stunned by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In this week’s episode, Stu Levitan describes how Madison reacted to the tragic news and the historical footnote that ties our city to that horrific day.
