Roosevelt Room, Kennedy Administration

This photograph is of the Roosevelt Room during the John F. Kennedy administration. The room is furnished with a center table once used in the Family Dining Room, a whalebone model of an American whaler gifted to President Kennedy by Soviet Premier Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev, and the portrait of Sarah Jackson, who served as White House hostess for her father-in-law, President Andrew Jackson. The Roosevelt Room is a conference room located across seen through the opened door, and acts as an all-purpose room for meetings, receptions, and announcements by presidents and their staff. During the Kennedy administration it was called the Fish Room, or West Wing Conference Room. It was renamed in 1969, when President Richard M. Nixon dedicated the room to Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt for their contributions to the construction of the West Wing.