These refreshingly normal photos of the everyday JFK White House show how much things have changed

No Big Macs here

President John F. Kennedy and guests at a swearing-in ceremony for Secret Service director James J. Rowley, September 1, 1961. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

The White House is more than just the presidential residence. It is also offices, kitchens, and dining rooms, filled with the requisite staff who keep the place running day in and day out. Politicians, foreign dignitaries, and tourists visit, showing up in groups or slipping through side doors.

Identifying the nameless faces in these images became such a challenge for the JFK Presidential Library that in 2014, archivists pulled an edit from more than 11,000 digitized images and, like other institutions suffering similar knowledge gaps with their collections, posted them on Flickr. An appeal was made to former White House staff and the general public for help identifying some of these people, whose names never made it onto an official photographer’s caption sheet or a sentry post’s sign-in log. At first there was a burst of excitement, and crowdsourced positive identifications led to updated archive records. But interest waned over time, and the efforts to fill in the blanks of history tapered off.

Photographs of unknown people granted access to the White House aren’t just an indication of how impossible running the place must be; they’re also a rare peek into the unguarded moments of one of the most highly guarded buildings on earth. Camelot wasn’t always the glamorous epicenter of American democracy, and even the debonair President Kennedy sometimes slouched with hands in pockets, uncertain how to engage in chitchat.

Not everyone caught in these candid photographs will be named. But thanks to the mystery behind their posing in the Rose Garden, in front of the official Christmas tree, or walking through the corridors of power, they’ve invited the world behind the scenes of a charismatic president’s day-to-day.

President John F. Kennedy and President Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan of India before a motorcade, June 4, 1963. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s press secretary Pamela Turnure sits in an office holding Caroline Kennedy’s cat, Tom Kitten, January 24, 1961. (Abbie Rowe/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

White House Executive Chef René Verdon and members of the White House kitchen staff pose with an assortment of cookies arranged for a luncheon in honor of Alfons Gorbach, Chancellor of Austria, May 3, 1962. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

(top left) Christmas reception for White House staff, December 27, 1961. (Robert Knudsen) | (top right) White House housekeeper Anne Lincoln with unidentified visitors, September 21, 1961. (Cecil Stoughton) | (bottom) First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy greets guests before a reception for the wives of American Society of Newspaper Editors members in the Blue Room, April 19, 1961. (Abbie Rowe/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

President John F. Kennedy and Under Secretary of the Navy Paul B. “Red” Fay sit in a helicopter on the South Lawn, June 7, 1961. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

(top) John F. Kennedy, Jr. tries on Naval Aide to the President Captain Tazewell Shepard’s hat, May 30, 1962. (Cecil Stoughton) | (bottom left) Unidentified White House staff members look at a purse during a presentation of gifts for First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, August 3, 1961. | (bottom right) Presidential Assistant John J. “Jack” McNally and two unidentified Japanese men and a plaque with an engraving of President Kennedy, June 19, 1961. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

President John F. Kennedy meets with Andrei Gromyko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union, October 6, 1961. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

(top) A man identified in the photographer’s log as “Mr. Piniau” stands in the driveway by the South Portico, May 20, 1961. | (bottom) Presidential assistant John McNally with five unidentified persons, East Wing Lawn, July 17, 1961. (Robert Knudsen/White House Photographs via John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum)

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