Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
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Early life
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born in Southampton, New York, to Wall Street stock broker John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee. Jacqueline had a younger sister, Caroline Lee, known as Lee, born in 1933. Her parents divorced in 1940 and her mother married Standard Oil heir Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr. in 1942. Through Janet’s second marriage, Jacqueline gained a half sister and a half brother, Janet and James Auchincloss.
Her mother’s family, the Lee’s, were mostly of Irish descent, and her father, John Vernou Bouvier III was three-sixteenths French and the remainder English. Michel Bouvier, Jacqueline’s great-great-grandfather, was born in France and was a contemporary of Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard. He was a Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker, merchant and real estate speculator.[citation needed] Michel’s wife, Louise Vernou was the daughter of John Vernou, a French migr tobacconist and Elizabeth Clifford Lindsay, an American born woman. Jacqueline’s grandfather, John Vernou Bouvier Jr., fashioned a more noble ancestry for his family in his vanity family history book Our Forebears. Recent scholarship and the research done by Jacqueline’s cousin, John H. Davis, in his book The Bouviers: portrait of an American family have disproved most of these fantasy lineages.
She spent her early years in New York City and East Hampton, New York at the Bouvier family estate, “Lasata”.[citation needed] Following their parents’ divorce, Jacqueline and Lee divided their time between their mother’s homes in McLean, Virginia and Newport, Rhode Island and their father’s homes in New York City and Long Island.
At a very early age she became an enthusiastic equestrienne, and horse-riding would remain a lifelong passion. As a child, she also enjoyed drawing, reading and lacrosse.[citation needed]
Education and young adulthood
Bouvier pursued her secondary education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland (19421944) and Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut (19441947).[citation needed]
When she made her society debut in 1947, Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her Debutante of the Year.
Bouvier spent her first two years of college at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, and spent her junior year (19491950) in France at the University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in a program through Smith College. Upon returning home to the United States, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1951 with a bachelor of arts degree in French literature. Bouvier’s college graduation coincided with her sister’s high school graduation, and the two spent the summer of 1951 on a trip through Europe. This trip was the subject of Kennedy’s only autobiographical book, One Special Summer, which is also the only one of her publications to feature her drawings.
Following her graduation, Bouvier was hired as the Inquiring Photographer for The Washington Times-Herald. The position required her to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures to be published alongside selected quotations from their responses in the newspaper. During this time, she was engaged to a young stock broker, John Husted, for three months.
Kennedy marriage and family
Jacqueline Kennedy at Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island on the day of her wedding in 1953.
Jacqueline and then-Senator John Kennedy belonged to the same social circle and often attended the same functions. In May 1952, at a dinner party organized by mutual friends, they were formally introduced for the first time. The two began dating soon afterward, and their engagement was officially announced on June 25, 1953.
Bouvier married Kennedy on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary’s Church in Newport, Rhode Island in a Mass celebrated by Boston’s Archbishop Richard Cushing. An estimated 700 guests attended the ceremony and 1,200 attended the reception that followed at Hammersmith Farm.
The wedding cake was created by Plourde’s Bakery in Fall River, Massachusetts. The wedding dress, now housed in the Kennedy Library in Boston, Massachusetts, and the dresses of her attendants were created by designer Ann Lowe of New York City.
The two honeymooned in Acapulco, Mexico, and settled in McLean, Virginia.
Jacqueline suffered a miscarriage in 1955 and gave birth to a stillborn baby girl in 1956. That same year, the couple sold their estate, Hickory Hill to Robert and Ethel Kennedy and moved to a townhouse on N Street in Georgetown. Kennedy subsequently gave birth to a second daughter, Caroline, in 1957, and a son, John, in 1960, both via Caesarian section.
Name
Birth
Death
Notes
Arabella Kennedy
August 23, 1956
August 23, 1956
Stillborn daughter.
Caroline Bouvier Kennedy
November 27, 1957
Married to Edwin Schlossberg; has two daughters and a son. She is the last surviving child of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr.
November 25, 1960
July 16, 1999
Magazine publisher and lawyer. Married to Carolyn Bessette. Both Kennedy and his wife died in a plane crash, as did Lauren Bessette, Carolyn’s sister, on July 16, 1999, off Martha’s Vineyard in a Piper Saratoga II HP piloted by Kennedy.
Patrick Bouvier Kennedy
August 7, 1963
August 9, 1963
Died from Hyaline Membrane Disease, today more commonly called Infant respiratory distress syndrome, at the age of two days.
First Lady of the United States
Campaign for Presidency
Jacqueline Kennedy campaigning alongside her husband in Appleton, Wisconsin, in March 1960
On January 2, 1960, John F. Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Presidency and launched his nationwide campaign. Though she had initially intended to take an active role in the campaign, Kennedy learned that she was pregnant shortly after the campaign commenced. Due to her previous difficult pregnancies, Kennedy’s doctor instructed her to stay at home. From Georgetown, Kennedy participated in her husband’s campaign by answering letters, taping television commercials, giving televised and printed interviews, and writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, “Campaign Wife.” She made rare personal appearances.
As First Lady
Mrs. Kennedy, the president, Andr Malraux, Marie-Madeleine Lioux Malraux, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson having just descended White House Grand Staircase on their way to a dinner with the French cultural minister, April 1962. Mrs. Kennedy wears a gown designed by Oleg Cassini.
In the general election on November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly beat Republican Richard Nixon in the U.S. presidential election. A little over two weeks later, Mrs. Kennedy gave birth to the couple’s first son, John, Jr. When her husband was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961, Kennedy became, at age 31, one of the youngest First Ladies in history, behind Frances Folsom Cleveland and Julia Tyler. Former First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was reportedly unhappy with the idea of John F. Kennedy coming into office following her husband’s term. Despite new First Lady Jackie having given birth to her son John Jr. via caesarean section two weeks prior, Mamie refused to inform Jackie that there was a wheelchair available for her to use while showing Mrs. Kennedy the various sections of the White House. Seeing Mamie’s displeasure during the tour, Jackie kept her composure while in Mrs. Eisenhower’s presence, finally collapsing in private once the new First Lady returned home. When Mamie Eisenhower was later questioned as to why she would do such a thing, the former First Lady simply stated, “Because she never asked.”
Like any First Lady, Kennedy was thrust into the spotlight and while she did not mind giving interviews or being photographed, she preferred to maintain as much privacy as possible for herself and her children.
Kennedy is remembered for reorganizing entertainment for White House Social events, seeking to restore several White House interiors, her taste in clothing worn during Kennedy’s Presidency, her popularity among foreign dignitaries, and leading the country in mourning after her husband’s assassination in 1963.
Kennedy ranks among the most popular of First Ladies.
Social success
As First Lady, Kennedy devoted much of her time to planning social events at the White House and other state properties. She often invited artists, writers, scientists, poets, and musicians to mingle with politicians, diplomats, and statesmen.[citation needed]
Perhaps due to her skill at entertaining, Kennedy proved quite popular among international dignitaries.[citation needed] When Soviet Premier Khrushchev was asked to shake President Kennedy’s hand for a photo, Krushchev said, “I’d like to shake her hand first.” Jacqueline was well received in Paris, France, when she visited with Kennedy, and when she traveled with Lee to India in 1962.[citation needed]
The President and Mrs. Kennedy at La Morita, Venezuela, on December 16, 1961
White House restoration
The White House Blue Room as redecorated by Stphane Boudin in 1962. Boudin chose the period of the Madison administration, returning much of the original French Empire style furniture.
The restoration of the White House was Jacqueline Kennedy’s first major project. She was dismayed during her pre-inauguration tour of the White House to find little of historic significance in the house. The rooms were furnished with undistinguished pieces that she felt lacked a sense of history. Her first efforts, begun her first day in residence (with the help of society decorator Sister Parish), were to make the family quarters attractive and suitable for family life and included the addition of a kitchen on the family floor and rooms for