The first Kennedy-Nixon debate: the McKeesport Junto of 1947

ABSTRACT

The first Kennedy-Nixon debate did not occur in the Fall of 1960, but rather in the Spring of 1947 when the Junto, a community group in McKeesport, Pennsylvania, hosted a forum on the Hartley bill, controversial legislation pending in Congress that substantively curtailed the power of labor unions. The freshman legislators selected to headline the event, Representatives John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Richard M. Nixon of California, would later become the 35^th and the 37^th presidents of the United States. The newspaper account of the McKeesport Junto, published the next day in the McKeesport Daily News, employed a content frame that focused on the substance of the debate. Later accounts of the Junto, published after the advent of television, shifted to a mediated frame that emphasized physical appearance and argumentative style. By highlighting the difference between the two analytical frames, this analysis explores the impact television had on the format for political debates, the history of the McKeesport Junto, and the famous presidential debates of 1960.

KEYWORDS:

• Debate
• John Kennedy
• Junto
• Richard Nixon
• 1960 presidential election

Acknowledgments

The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of David Moore, Director, and Gail White, Operations Assistant, of the McKeesport Regional History and Heritage Center located at 1832 Arboretum Drive, McKeesport, PA 15132.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 All quotations from the debate come from this article.