John F. Kennedy.

John F. Kennedy.

Watertown (Mass.) -- Social life and customs.; Elections -- Massachusetts -- 1952.; City and town life -- Massachusetts -- Watertown.;

Visit to the Arsenal. The 1952 Massachusetts Senate election was a contest between two representatives of New England's most prominent political families: the Republican Lodges and the Democratic Kennedys. Massachusetts Senate campaign was the climax of a longstanding battle between the older Protestant families like the Lodges, who had controlled politics in the Bay State for generations, and the newer Irish Catholic families such as the Kennedys, who for demographic reasons now outnumbered the Protestants. The Kennedys also viewed the 1952 race as something of a grudge match, as Lodge's grandfather had defeated Kennedy's grandfather, Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, in a 1916 Senate race in Massachusetts. By election day in November 1952 he had visited every city, town, and village in Massachusetts at least once. Kennedy's narrow victory marked the end of the Lodge dynasty and beginning of the Kennedy dynasty.

1952

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