About the Collections
CollectionsA diverse, actively growing collection of approximately 35,000 items, The Sixth Floor Museum Collection is one of the world's largest and most important sources of visual, audio, documentary and artifactual documentation of the assassination and legacy of President John F. Kennedy. Included in the Museum's holdings are three-dimensional artifacts, manuscripts and documents, photographic materials, historic film, video and audio, newspapers and magazines, and oral histories.
Contribute
The Museum's collection is widely recognized as one of the most detailed chronicles of the assassination and legacy of President John F. Kennedy, but it is not complete. There are still many unknown films, photographs, documents, artifacts and other materials in existence that could help the Museum build a more comprehensive picture of the assassination and related events. Do you have something to share—a memory, an object, a photograph or a film? Please contact us at collections@jfk.org.
Research
The Museum's Librarian and Curatorial staff members actively assist researchers and students with use of the Museum's collections. Information on conducting research at the Museum may be found here.
Rights and Reproductions
For more information and to request permission, see the Rights and Reproductions Request Form.
Film and Photographic Collections
The Museum's collection of amateur films and images illustrates how home movies and personal photographs can capture history on an individual level. These collections include silent, color films of Kennedy taken during his 1960 presidential campaign and at his funeral in 1963, as well as historic still photographs of the president's trip to Dallas and images of Dealey Plaza, Dallas Love Field airport and the Texas School Book Depository. These films and images provide a significant visual eyewitness record of the Kennedy assassination and related events.
Highlights from the Film and Photographic Collections:
Abraham Zapruder Collection
The Abraham Zapruder home movie of the Kennedy assassination is the only known film of the entire assassination. It is a silent, 8mm color record of the Kennedy motorcade just before, during and immediately after the shooting. The two major investigations into the assassination, the Warren Commission in 1963-1964 and the House Select Committee on Assassinations in 1977-1978, relied on it to answer questions about how the shooting happened. The Museum's Zapruder Collection, donated to the Museum in 1999 by the heirs to the Abraham Zapruder estate, consists of the only privately held first-day, first-generation print of the film, as well as numerous other materials associated with the film collected by the Zapruder family over the years. The Zapruder family also assigned all copyrights in the film to the Museum.
Orville Nix Collection
The Orville Nix film is considered the second most important film after the Zapruder film depicting the assassination of President Kennedy. Nix filmed the motorcade from the south curb of Main Street, inside Dealey Plaza—the reverse angle from the Zapruder film—showing part of the grassy knoll in the background. Acquired from the Nix family, this collection includes the best known existing copy of the Nix film, several hours of additional Nix family home movies, film-related correspondence and documents, and the camera used by Nix in Dealey Plaza on November 22, 1963.
George Jefferies Collection
The George Jefferies Collection contains a home movie of the fateful Kennedy motorcade taken on November 22, 1963, by Jefferies and donated to the Museum by his son-in-law, Wayne Graham. The film shows the president and first lady in the limousine as it proceeds down Main Street in downtown Dallas less than 90 seconds before the assassination. The remainder of the 40-second-long film shows Dealey Plaza the following day.
Jay Skaggs Collection
The Jay Skaggs Collection features 20 color slides taken by amateur photographer Skaggs in Dealey Plaza just before and in the minutes following the Kennedy assassination. Skaggs, who took photos as he followed investigators around the plaza immediately after the shooting, believed his photos were unimportant since they did not show the actual shooting. In fact, they are of great historical significance and they may someday answer questions about the tragic event. Skaggs came forward in early 2002 and donated his original images to The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.
Phil Willis Collection
The Phil Willis Collection represents the most extensive collection of images by an amateur photographer in Dealey Plaza at the time of the assassination, as well as the most extensive color record of that day's events in Dealey Plaza. Willis' 30 original color slides, acquired by the Museum from the Willis family in 2002, include unique images of the motorcade and investigators at the scene over the next several hours. The Willis photo of the president during the shooting—a particularly rare image—has been scrutinized repeatedly by official investigators and researchers since 1963. The Willis Collection also includes correspondence and documents about the slides, various clippings, newspapers, and magazines about the assassination, numerous sealed copy sets of the slides, and the camera used by Willis on November 22, 1963.
Media Collections
The Museum's media collections represent the largest single source for still and moving images related to the assassination outside of the major broadcast networks and the National Archives. These holdings total more than 250 hours of original Kennedy assassination news coverage on film, video and audiotape and nearly 2,000 original negatives of Dallas newspaper photographs from the weekend of the assassination and beyond.
Highlights from the Media Collections:
KDFW, KTVT, and WFAA Collections
These collections, donated to the Museum by three local Dallas television stations, contain nearly 250 hours of news coverage relating to the Kennedy assassination. The KDFW Collection of news film, video and audiotapes, preserved by CBS-affiliated KRLD Television and Radio, includes coverage from the morning of the assassination through the 1964 Jack Ruby trial and resulting appeals. The KTVT Collection includes video of President Kennedy's last speech in Fort Worth on November 22, 1963, and the aftermath of the assassination at Parkland Memorial Hospital. The WFAA Collection includes video, film and audio coverage from President Kennedy's arrival in Fort Worth the night before the assassination through Jack Ruby's death in 1967.
Dallas Times Herald Collection
Donated to the Museum in 1989—two years before the newspaper closed down—these holdings contain original negatives of approximately 700 black-and-white news images taken by photographers for the Dallas Times Herald over the assassination weekend and beyond. Included in the collection are many unique and crucial images, and though only a few of these historic scenes were published by the newspaper, they provide a powerful visual record of President Kennedy's last hours, from his final speech in Fort Worth to his arrival in Dallas, the subsequent motorcade, assassination aftermath, and investigations. The images also provide compelling evidence of the grief and chaos that ensured in the days following the tragedy.
Tom Dillard Collection
The Tom Dillard Collection includes nearly 200 original negatives of photographs taken or collected by the chief photographer for the Dallas Morning News over the assassination weekend. The collection consists of mostly unpublished images, including pictures of the Kennedys at Dallas Love Field airport, a photo of a bullet mark on the Main Street curb that led to the "single bullet theory," photos of Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody, and candid images from 1964 of Oswald's wife, Marina, and the Oswalds' two daughters.
Bill Winfrey Collection
Bill Winfrey, a longtime photography for the Dallas Morning News, was heavily involved in covering the events of the assassination weekend and later the Jack Ruby trial. His collection, acquired by the Museum in 2004 and 2007, includes almost 800 images encompassing subjects such as Major General Edwin Walker in 1962, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson in Dallas, President Kennedy's chair at the Dallas Trade Mart, the assassination aftermath in Dealey Plaza, Lee Harvey Oswald in police custody, Jack Ruby in police custody, the Jack Ruby trial, John and Nellie Connally at Dallas Love Field in 1964, Marina Oswald departing for her Warren Commission appearances in 1964, and numerous other events and individuals as recent as the Dealey Plaza National Historic Landmark District designation ceremonies in 1993. The collection also includes numerous artifacts and documents related to Winfrey's work.
Marvin Scott Collection
This collection consists of original audiotaped interviews with assassination witnesses Abraham Zapruder, Marilyn Sitzman, Roy Truly, Peter Geilich, Penn Jones and others, including Muhammad Ali, recorded in Dallas in November 1966. The interviews were conducted by freelance radio correspondent Marvin Scott for use in a third-anniversary story about the people of Dallas. Dallas Revisited aired over the Mutual Broadcasting System that same month. Zapruder rarely gave interviews about his experience as an eyewitness to the assassination, and this is his most extensive recorded interview—portions of which were conducted in the same spot in Dealey Plaza where Zapruder filmed the assassination three years earlier.
Passage Productions Collection
This collection consists of approximately 35 unedited, videotaped hours of original interviews with many key witnesses and researchers. The interviews were compiled by producer/director Chip Selby for his TV documentaries Reasonable Doubt and The Warren Commission, which premiered, respectively, on the Arts & Entertainment Channel in 1988 and the History Channel in 1999. Among the 26 interview subjects are David Belin, G. Robert Blakey, Anthony Summers, Josiah Thompson, Dr. Cyril Wecht, Harold Weisberg and former President Gerald R. Ford.
Documentary and Artifact Collections
The Museum's diverse documentary and artifact collections related to President Kennedy and his assassination include historic three-dimensional objects, such as presidential memorabilia, campaign and political ephemera, newsroom and photographic equipment, architectural components, film props, clothing, toys and other items. The document-based collections include manuscripts, courtroom sketches, correspondence, diaries, hospital records, court records, newspapers, magazines, historic maps and other archival materials.
Highlights from the Documentary and Artifact Collections:
Parkland Hospital Collection
The Parkland collection contains original and photocopies of medical reports from the Dallas County hospital where President Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally were taken for treatment immediately after the shootings. The collection also contains original administrative reports, doctor summaries, employee recollections and correspondence files related to the treatment of President Kennedy, accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Oswald's killer, Jack Ruby. Also available in this collection is a copy of the autopsy report on Dallas Police Officer J.D. Tippit, who was apparently shot by Oswald. Oswald, whose Parkland file predates the assassination, died at the hospital following his gunshot wounding by Ruby. Ruby, who was incarcerated at the Dallas County Jail for the rest of his life, was treated on occasion by county personnel; he later died at Parkland from complications of lung cancer. Connally's records are not part of this collection; they were forwarded to his physician following his discharge.
Julia Knecht Collection
The Knecht Collection contains several thousand items kept by Knecht, the personal assistant to former Major General Edwin Walker. Walker, a controversial, conservative Army general, was reprimanded for distributing John Birch Society literature to his troops in violation of Army regulations. At the request of President Kennedy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara relieved Walker of his duties, whereupon Walker resigned. He continued his right-wing political reviews from his home in Dallas and launched a failed bid for Texas governor in 1962. A year later, Walker was shot at by Lee Harvey Oswald, just seven months prior to the Kennedy assassination; the shot missed, and Walker wasn't hurt. Most of the Knecht Collection is post-1961 and contains Knecht's notes, ads, photos, films and numerous clippings and publications relating to Walker. The collection continues into the 1980s, when she retired. Some of the collection items were presumably Walker's, but most are believed to be Knecht's.
Jack Ruby Trial Collections
These collections include documents, correspondence, memoirs, and trial-related personal effects of the presiding judge, Joe B. Brown, and the handwritten diaries of three jurors, J. Waymon Rose, Allen McCoy and jury foreman Max E. Causey. Other collections include original courtroom sketches by KRLD-TV staff artists Chuck Fisher and Gary Artzt, as well as an original set of trial transcripts and assorted Ruby-related documents from the Dallas County District Clerk Collection. Various other collections in the Museum's holdings include material relating to the life and death of Jack Ruby, including memorabilia from the Carousel Club and letters and Christmas cards sent to Jack Ruby at Parkland Memorial Hospital shortly before his death in December 1966.
Newspaper Collections
These collections include more than 4,000 newspapers that covered the assassination and related events. These newspapers came from towns and cities throughout the United States and all over the world. The Don Coleman Collection includes more than 200 newspaper and documents from 25 countries in 16 different languages.
Wire Service Copy Collections
These collections, acquired from eight individual donors, include news wire copy and bulletins from the Associated Press, United Press International and Dow Jones services. Together, these news bulletins represent nearly complete coverage from the first bulletins about the assassination on November 22, 1963, through the president's funeral on November 25, 1963.
John F. Kennedy Funeral Ephemera Collection
The Museum purchased this material at auction from the collection of Sanford L. Fox, chief of the Social Entertainments Office and director of protocol for the White House, 1960-1974. The collection consists of materials from the office that produced all invitations, menus, place cards, escort cards and programs for White House and State occasions, including the funeral of President Kennedy. It includes documents related to the planning of the president's funeral (some with handwritten notations by the first lady), including an official invitation to the funeral, a seating chart and a narrative of events for the funeral services. Various other collections in the Museum's holdings include Kennedy funeral mass cards, memorial service programs from various locations, recordings and transcripts of sermons and memorial services, and other memorial items.
