Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy
Onassis (July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was the wife of the
35th president of the
United States, John F. Kennedy,
and served as First Lady during his
presidency from 1961 until his assassination in
1963
. She was later married to
Greek shipping magnate
Aristotle Onassis from 1968 until his
death in 1975. In later years she had a successful career as a book
editor. She is remembered for her contributions to the arts and
historic preservation, her style and elegance, and her public
stoicism in the wake of President Kennedy's assassination.
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.
On her mother's side, Jacqueline was of half
Irish descent, and on her father's side,
one-sixteenth
French and
English. Michael Bouvier, Jacqueline's
great-great-grandfather and closest French ancestor, was a
contemporary of
Joseph Bonaparte
and
Stephen Girard. He was a
Philadelphia-based cabinetmaker, merchant and real estate
speculator.
She spent
her early years in New York
City
and East Hampton, New York
at the Bouvier family estate, "Lasata
".
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.
Education and young adulthood
Bouvier
pursued her secondary education at the Holton-Arms School in Bethesda,
Maryland
(1942–1944) and Miss Porter's School
in Farmington, Connecticut
(1944–1947).
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 (1949–1950) 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
[[Image:JBKJFKMalraux.jpg|thumb|right|Mrs. Kennedy, the president,
André 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.
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.
Perhaps due to her skill at entertaining, Kennedy proved quite
popular among international dignitaries. 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.
White House restoration
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 her
children. Upon almost immediately exhausting the funds appropriated
for this effort, she established a fine arts committee to oversee
and fund the restoration process; she also asked early American
furniture expert
Henry du Pont
to consult.
Her
skillful management of this project was hardly noted at the time,
except in terms of gossipy shock at repeated repainting of a room,
or the high cost of the antique Zuber wallpaper panels installed in
the family dining room ($12,000 in donated funds), but later
accounts have noted that she managed the conflicting agendas of
Parish, du Pont, and Boudin with seamless success; she initiated
publication of the first White House guidebook, whose sales further
funded the restoration; she initiated a Congressional bill
establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of
the Smithsonian
Institution
, rather than available to departing ex-presidents
to claim as their own; and she wrote personal requests to those who
owned pieces of historical interest that might be, and later were,
donated to the White House.
On
February 14, 1962, Mrs. Kennedy took American television viewers on
a tour of the White
House
with Charles Collingwood of
CBS. In the tour she said, "I just feel
that everything in the White House should be the best—the
entertainment that's given here. If it's an American company you
can help, I like to do that. If not—just as long as it's the best."
Working
with Rachel Lambert Mellon, Mrs. Kennedy oversaw redesign and
replanting of the White House Rose Garden
and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline
Kennedy Garden
after her husband's assassination. Her
efforts on behalf of restoration and preservation at the White
House left a lasting legacy in the form of the
White House Historical
Association, the
Committee for
the Preservation of the White House which was based upon her
White House Furnishings Committee, a permanent
Curator of the White House, the
White House Endowment
Trust, and the
White
House Acquisition Trust.
Broadcasting of the White House restoration greatly helped the
Kennedy administration. The United States sought international
support during the Cold War, which it achieved by affecting public
opinion. Mrs. Kennedy’s celebrity and high profile status made
viewing the tour of the White house very desirable. The tour was
taped and distributed to 106 countries since there was a great
demand from the elite as well as people in power to see the film.
In 1962 at the 14th Annual Emmy Awards (NBC, May 22), Bob Newhart
emceed from the Hollywood Palladium; Johnny Carson from the New
York Astor Hotel; and NBC newsman David Brinkley hosted at the
Sheraton Park Hotel in Washington D.C. and took the spotlight as a
special Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Trustees Award was
given to Jacqueline Kennedy for her CBS-TV tour of the White House.
Lady Bird Johnson accepted for the camera-shy First Lady. The
actual Emmy statuette is on display in the Kennedy Library located
in Boston, Massachusetts. Focus and admiration for Jacqueline
Kennedy took negative attention away from her husband. By
attracting worldwide public attention, the First Lady gained allies
for the White House and international support for the Kennedy
administration and its Cold War policies.
Foreign trips
Before the Kennedys visited France, a television special was shot
in French with Mrs. Kennedy on the White House lawn. When the
Kennedys visited France, she'd already won the hearts of the French
people, impressing the French public with her ability to speak
French. At the conclusion of the visit,
Time magazine seemed delighted with the
First Lady and noted, "There was also that fellow who came with
her." Even President Kennedy joked, "I am the man who accompanied
Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris — and I have enjoyed it!"
At the urging of
John Kenneth
Galbraith, President Kennedy's ambassador to India, Mrs.
Kennedy undertook a tour of India and Pakistan, taking her sister
Lee Radziwill along with her, which
was amply documented in photojournalism of the time as well as in
Galbraith's journals and memoirs. At the time, Ambassador Galbraith
noted a considerable disjunction between Mrs Kennedy's widely-noted
concern with clothes and other frivolity and, on personal
acquaintance, her considerable intellect.
While in
Karachi
she found some time to take a ride on a camel with
her sister. In Lahore
, Pakistani
President Ayub Khan presented Mrs. Kennedy
with a much-photographed horse, Sardar (the
Urdu term meaning ‘leader’).
Subsequently this gift was widely
misattributed to the king of Saudi Arabia
, including in the various recollections of the
Kennedy White House years by President Kennedy's friend, journalist
and editor Benjamin Bradlee.
It has never become clear whether this general misattribution of
the gift was carelessness or a deliberate effort to deflect
attention from the USA's preference for Pakistan over India.
While at
a reception for herself at Shalimar Gardens
, Mrs. Kennedy told guests "all my life I've dreamed
of coming to the Shalimar Gardens. It's even lovelier than
I'd dreamed. I only wish my husband could be with me."
While in Lahore, she
had a friendly chat with Iranian
Empress Farah Pahlavi,
whom many compared to Mrs. Kennedy.
Death of youngest son
Early in 1963, Kennedy became pregnant again and curtailed her
official duties.
She spent most of the summer at the
Kennedys' rented home on Squaw Island, near the Kennedy family's
Cape
Cod
compound at Hyannis Port
, where she went into premature labor on August 7,
1963. She gave birth to a boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via
emergency Caesarian section at Otis Air Force Base
, five and a half weeks prematurely.
His lungs
were not fully developed, and he died at Boston
Children's Hospital
of hyaline membrane disease (now known as
respiratory distress syndrome) on August 9, 1963. The couple
was devastated by the loss of their infant son, and that tragedy
brought them closer together than ever before.
Assassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy
On
November 21, 1963, the First Couple left the White House for a
political trip to Texas, stopping in San Antonio
, Houston
, and Fort
Worth
that day. After a breakfast on November 22, the
Kennedys flew from Carswell Air Force Base
to Dallas's Love Field
on Air Force One,
accompanied by Texas Governor John
Connally and his wife Nellie. A
motorcade was to take them to the Trademart where
the President was scheduled to speak at a lunch. Mrs. Kennedy was
seated next to her husband in the limousine, with the Governor and
his wife seated in front of them. Vice President Johnson and his
wife followed in another car in the motorcade.
After the
motorcade turned the corner onto Elm Street in Dealey Plaza
, Mrs. Kennedy heard what she thought to be a
motorcycle backfiring, and did not realize
that it was a gunshot until she heard Governor Connally scream. Within 8.4
seconds, two more shots had rung out, and she leaned toward her
husband. The final shot struck the President in the head. Mrs.
Kennedy, who had been thrust into a state of shock by the disaster,
climbed out of the back seat and half crawled over the trunk of the
car (she later had no recollection at all of having done this). Her
Secret Service agent,
Clint Hill, later
told the
Warren Commission that he
thought she had been reaching for a piece of the President's skull
that had blown off. Hill ran to the car and leapt onto it,
directing Mrs. Kennedy back to her seat. The car rushed to Dallas's
Parkland Hospital, and on arrival
there, the president's body was rushed into a trauma room. Mrs.
Kennedy, for the moment, remained in a room for relatives and
friends of patients just outside.
A few minutes into her husband's treatment, Mrs. Kennedy,
accompanied by the President's doctor, Admiral
George Burkley, left her folding chair
outside Trauma Room One and attempted to enter the operating room.
Nurse Doris Nelson stopped her and attempted to bar the door to
prevent Mrs. Kennedy from entering. She persisted, and the
President's doctor suggested that she take a sedative, which she
refused. "I want to be there when he dies," she told Burkley. He
eventually persuaded Nelson to grant her access to Trauma Room One,
saying "It's her right, it's her prerogative".
Later, when the casket arrived, the widow removed her wedding ring
and slipped it onto the President's finger. She told aide
Ken O'Donnell, "Now I have nothing
left."
After the president's death, Mrs. Kennedy refused to remove her
blood-stained clothing, and regretted having washed the blood off
her face and hands. She continued to wear the blood-stained pink
suit as she went on board Air Force One and stood next to Johnson
when he took the oath of office as President. She told
Lady Bird Johnson, "I want them to see
what they have done to Jack."

Jacqueline Kennedy, Robert Kennedy,
John Jr., Caroline, and Peter Lawford depart the U.S.
Capitol after a lying-in-state ceremony for John Fitzgerald
Kennedy, November 24, 1963
Mrs. Kennedy took an active role in planning the details of the
state funeral for
her husband, which was based on Abraham Lincoln's.
The funeral service
was held at St. Matthew's
Cathedral, Washington D.C., and the burial at Arlington
National Cemetery
; the widow led the procession there on foot and
would light the eternal flame at the grave site, a flame that had
been created at her request. Lady Jean Campbell reported
back to
The London
Evening Standard: "Jacqueline Kennedy has given the
American people… one thing they have always lacked: Majesty." The
widow was not unaware of the powerful effect she was making. Though
Mrs. Kennedy was deeply distraught by the loss, she also showed a
steely determination to make this the solemn outgoing show of her
husband's era; Lyndon Johnson was practically eclipsed on November
25.
Following the assassination and the media coverage which had
focused intensely on her during and after the burial, Mrs. Kennedy
stepped back from official public view. She did, however, make a
brief appearance in Washington to honor the
Secret Service agent,
Clint Hill, who had climbed aboard the limousine
in Dallas to try to shield her and the President.
Life following the assassination
A week after the assassination, Mrs. Kennedy was interviewed in
Hyannisport on November 29 by
Theodore H. White of
Life magazine. In that session, she
compared the Kennedy years in the White House to
King Arthur's mythical
Camelot, commenting that the President often played
the title song of
Lerner and
Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also
quoted
Queen Guinevere from the musical,
trying to express how the loss felt.

Jackie Kennedy's Official White House
Portrait
The steadiness and courage of Kennedy during her husband's
assassination and funeral won her admiration around the world.
Following his death, Kennedy and her children remained in their
quarters in the White House for two weeks, preparing to vacate.
Kennedy
and her children spent the winter of 1964 in Averell Harriman's home in the Georgetown
section of Washington, D.C.
, before purchasing her own home on another block of
the same street. Later in 1964, In the hope of having more
privacy for her children , Mrs. Kennedy decided to acquire an
apartment on Fifth Avenue in New York and sold her new Georgetown
house; she also sold the country home in Atoka, Virginia, where she
and President Kennedy had intended to retire. She spent a year in
mourning, making few public appearances; during this time, Caroline
told one of her teachers that her mother cried frequently.
Mrs. Kennedy perpetuated her husband's memory by attending selected
memorial dedications. These included the 1967 christening of the
Navy aircraft carrier (decommissioned in 2007),
in Newport News, Virginia, and a memorial in
Hyannisport, Massachusetts.
They also included
the dedication of the United Kingdom's official memorial to
President Kennedy at Runnymede
, England and the dedication of a park near New Ross
, Ireland
. She oversaw plans for the establishment of
the John F.
Kennedy Library
, which is the repository for official papers of the
Kennedy Administration. Original plans to have the library situated
in Cambridge,
Massachusetts
, near Harvard University
, proved problematic for various reasons, so it is
situated in Boston. The finished library, designed by
I.M. Pei, includes
a museum and was dedicated in Boston in 1979 by President
Jimmy Carter.
Onassis marriage
During her widowhood, Jacqueline was romantically linked by the
press to a few men, notably
David
Ormsby-Gore and
Roswell
Gilpatric. But in June 1968 when her brother-in-law
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, she came to fear
for her life and that of her children, saying "If they're killing
Kennedys, then my children are targets...I want to get out of this
country." On October 20, 1968 she married
Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy, Greek
shipping magnate, who was able to provide her family with the
privacy and security she needed for herself and her children.
The
wedding took place on Skorpios
, Onassis's private island in the Ionian Sea
, Greece. Jacqueline gave up Secret Service
protection and her
Franking
Privilege, to which a widow of a president of the United States
is entitled, after her marriage to Onassis. As a result of the
marriage, the media gave her the nickname "Jackie O." which has
remained a popular shorthand reference to her.
For a time, the marriage brought her adverse publicity and seemed
to tarnish the image of the grieving presidential widow , and she
became the target of
paparazzi who were
following her everywhere much to her displeasure and dismay.
Despite it all, the marriage initially seemed successful enough,
the couple dividing their time between New York City, Paris and
Skorpios.
Then tragedy struck again, as Onassis's only son
Alexander died in a plane crash in January
1973. The once invincible Onassis was left a broken and
disillusioned man and the marriage turned sour. His health began
deteriorating rapidly and he died in Paris, on March 15, 1975. Her
financial legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which
dictated how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After
two years of legal battle, Jacqueline eventually accepted from
Christina Onassis, Onassis's
daughter and sole heir, a settlement of $26,000,000, waiving all
other claims to the Onassis estate.
Later years
Onassis's death in 1975 made Mrs. Onassis, then 46, a widow for the
second time. Now that her children were older, she decided to find
work that would be fulfilling to her. Since she had always enjoyed
writing and literature, in 1975 Jacqueline accepted a job offer as
an editor at
Viking Press. But, in
1978, the President of Viking Press,
Thomas H. Guinzburg, authorized the purchase of
the Jeffrey Archer novel
Shall We Tell the
President?, which was set in a fictional future presidency
of
Edward M. Kennedy and described an assassination
plot against him. Although Guinzburg cleared the book purchase and
publication with Mrs. Onassis, upon the publication of a negative
Sunday New York Times review which asserted that Mrs. Onassis held
some blame for its publication, she abruptly resigned from Viking
Press the next day.
She then moved to Doubleday as an associate editor under
an old friend, John
Sargent, living in New York City, Martha's Vineyard
and the Kennedy Compound
in Hyannis, Massachusetts
. From the mid 1970s until her death, her
companion was
Maurice Tempelsman,
a Belgian-born industrialist and
diamond
merchant who was long separated from his wife.
She also continued to be the subject of much press attention, most
notoriously involving the photographer
Ron
Galella. He followed her around and photographed her as she
went about her day-to-day activities, obtaining candid, iconic
photos of her. She ultimately obtained a restraining order against
him and the situation brought attention to
paparazzi-style photography. In 1995, John F.
Kennedy Jr. allowed Galella to photograph him at public
events.
Among the many books she edited was
Larry
Gonick's
The
Cartoon History of the Universe. He expressed his
gratitude in the acknowledgments in Volume 2. Mrs. Onassis's
continuing charisma is indicated by the delight the Canadian author
Robertson Davies took in
discovering that at a commencement exercise at an American
university at which he was being honored, Jacqueline Kennedy was on
hand, circulating among the honorees.
Jacqueline Onassis also appreciated the contributions of
African-American writers to the American literary canon.
She
encouraged Dorothy West, her neighbor
on Martha's
Vineyard
and the last surviving member of the Harlem Renaissance, to complete The
Wedding, a multi-generational story about race, class, wealth,
and power in the United States. The novel received great
literary acclaim when it was published by Doubleday in 1995; in
1998
Oprah Winfrey introduced the
story via a television film of the same name starring
Halle Berry.
Dorothy
West acknowledged Jacqueline Onassis's kind encouragement in
the foreword.
She also worked to preserve and protect America’s cultural
heritage.
The notable results of her hard work include
Lafayette Square
in Washington, D.C, and Grand Central Terminal
, New York's beloved historic railroad
station. While she was First Lady, she helped to stop the
destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square, because she felt
that these buildings were an important part of the nation’s capital
and played an essential role in its history. Later, in New York
City, she led a historic preservation campaign to save and renovate
Grand Central Terminal from demolition. A plaque inside the
terminal acknowledges her prominent role in its preservation.
In the
1980s, she was a major figure in protests against a planned
skyscraper at Columbus
Circle
which would have cast large shadows on Central Park
, the project was cancelled, but a large twin
towered skyscraper would later fill in that spot in 2003, the
Time Warner
Center
.
From her
apartment windows in New York City she had a splendid view of a
glass enclosed wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art
which displays the Temple of Dendur
. This was a gift from Egypt
to the
United States in gratitude for the generosity of the Kennedy administration, who had been
instrumental in saving several temples and objects of Egyptian
antiquity that would otherwise have been flooded after the
construction of the Aswan
Dam
.
Death
In January 1994, Onassis was diagnosed with
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, a form of
cancer. Her diagnosis was announced to the
public in February. The family and doctors were initially
optimistic, and she stopped smoking at the insistence of her
daughter. Onassis continued her work with Doubleday, but curtailed
her schedule. By April, the cancer had spread, and she made her
last trip home from
New York
Hospital-Cornell Medical Center on May 18, 1994. A large crowd
of well-wishers, tourists, and reporters gathered on the street
outside her apartment. Onassis died in her sleep at 10:15 p.m. on
Thursday, May 19, two and a half months before her 65th birthday.
In announcing her death, Jacqueline's son, John Kennedy Jr. stated,
"My mother died surrounded by her friends and her family and her
books, and the people and the things that she loved. She did it in
her own way, and on her own terms, and we all feel lucky for
that."
Onassis' funeral was held on May 23 at
Saint Ignatius Loyola Church in
Manhattan - the church where she was baptized in 1929. At her
funeral, her son John described three of her attributes as the love
of words, the bonds of home and family, and the spirit of
adventure.
She was buried alongside President Kennedy,
their son Patrick, and their stillborn daughter at Arlington
National Cemetery
in Arlington, Virginia
.
In her will, Onassis left her children Caroline and John an estate
valued at $200 million by its executors.
Fashion icon
During her husband's presidency, Jacqueline Kennedy became a symbol
of fashion for women all over the world. She retained French-born
American fashion designer and Kennedy family friend
Oleg Cassini in the fall of 1960 to create an
original wardrobe for her as First Lady. From 1961 to late 1963,
Cassini dressed her in many of her most iconic ensembles, including
her Inauguration Day fawn coat and Inaugural gala gown as well as
many outfits for her visits to Europe, India and Pakistan. Her
clean
suit, sleeveless
A-line dresses and famous
pillbox hats were an overnight success around
the world and became known as the "Jackie" look. Although Cassini
was her primary designer, she also wore ensembles by French fashion
legends such as
Chanel,
Givenchy, and
Dior. More than
any other First Lady her style was copied by commercial
manufacturers and a large segment of young women.
In the years after the White House, her style changed dramatically.
Gone were the modest "campaign wife" clothes. Wide-leg pantsuits,
large lapel jackets, silk Hermes head scarves and large, round,
dark sunglasses were her new look. She often chose to wear brighter
colors and patterns and even began wearing jeans in public. She
also experimented with different styles, often wearing a large
amount of jewelry, hoop earrings with her hair pulled back, and
gypsy skirts.
Legacy
In December 1999, Onassis was among 18 included in
Gallup's List of Widely
Admired People of the 20th Century, from a poll conducted of
the American people.
Honors and memorials
Onassis's legacy has been memorialized in various aspects of
American culture. They include:
- Central Park
's main reservoir was renamed in her honor as the
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
Reservoir
.
- At
George
Washington University
, a residence hall located on the southeast corner
of I and 23rd streets NW in Washington, D.C. was renamed Jacqueline
Bouvier Kennedy Onassis Hall in honor of the alumna.
- The
White
House
's East Garden was renamed the Jacqueline
Kennedy Garden
in her honor.
- In 2007, her name and her first husband's were included on the
list of people aboard the Japanese Kaguya mission to the moon
launched on September 14, as part of The Planetary Society's "Wish Upon The
Moon" campaign. In addition, they are included on the list
aboard NASA
's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter
mission.
- A school and an award at the American Ballet Theatre have been
named after her in honor of her childhood study of ballet.
- The companion book for a series of interviews between
mythologist Joseph Campbell and
Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth, was created under
the direction of Onassis, prior to her death. The book's editor,
Betty Sue Flowers, writes in the
Editor's Note to The Power of Myth: "I am
grateful… to Jacqueline Lee Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, the Doubleday editor, whose interest in
the books of Joseph Campbell was the prime mover in the publication
of this book." A year after her death in 1994, Moyers dedicated the
companion book for his PBS series, The Language of Life to Onassis.
The dedication read: "To Jacqueline Onassis. As you sail on to
Ithaka." Ithaka
was a
reference to the C.P.
Cavafy poem that Maurice Tempelsman read at her
funeral.
Cultural depictions
Onassis is frequently alluded to and depicted in various forms of
popular culture, including
films,
television series,
cartoon series,
video
games and
music. Numerous books and plays
have been written about her.
Further reading
- Abbott, James A. A Frenchman in Camelot: The Decoration of
the Kennedy White House by Stéphane Boudin. Boscobel
Restoration Inc.: 1995. ISBN 0-9646659-0-5.
- Abbott James A., and Elaine M. Rice. Designing Camelot: The
Kennedy White House Restoration. Van Nostrand Reinhold: 1998.
ISBN 0-442-02532-7.
- Abbott, James A. Jansen. Acanthus Press: 2006. ISBN
0-926494-33-3.
- Baldrige, Letitia. In the
Kennedy Style: Magical evenings in the Kennedy White House.
Doubleday: 1998. ISBN 0-385-48964-1.
- Bowles, Hamish, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., and Rachel Lambert
Mellon. "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years." The
Metropolitan Museum of Art. bulfinch Press/Little, Brown and
Company: 2001. ISBN 0-8212-2745-9.
- Cassini, Oleg. A Thousand Days of Magic: Dressing the First
Lady for the White House. Rizzoli International Publications:
1995. ISBN 0-8478-1900-0.
- Perry, Barbara A.
Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier
University Press of Kansas: 2004. ISBN 978-0-7006-1343-4.
- Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of
Camelot. Warner Books: 2000. ISBN 0-446-52426-3
- West, J.B. with Mary Lynn Kotz. Upstairs at the White
House: My Life with the First Ladies. Coward, McCann &
Geoghegan: 1973. SBN 698-10546-X.
- Wolff, Perry. A Tour of the White House with Mrs. John F.
Kennedy. Doubleday & Company: 1962.
- Exhibition Catalogue, Sale 6834: The Estate of Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis April 23–26, 1996. Sothebys, Inc.: 1996.
- The White House: An Historic Guide. White House
Historical Association and the National Geographic Society: 2001.
ISBN 0-912308-79-6.
References
- John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum,
Jacqueline Kennedy in the White House
-
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/JFK+in+History/Jacqueline+Kennedy+in+the+White+House.htm
-
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/JFK+in+History/Jacqueline+Kennedy+in+the+White+House.htm|title=What
Jackie Taught Us: Lessons From the Remarkable Life of Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis|author=Tina Santi
Flaherty|accessdate=2009-8-17
- The First Ladies Fact Book: The Childhoods, Courtships,
Marriages, Campaigns, Accomplishments, and Legacies of Every First
Lady from Martha Washington to Michelle Obama, by Bill Harris &
Laura Ross, 2009
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life, by Donald Spoto,
2000
- Bouvier, Jacqueline and Lee. One Special Summer. New
York: Delacorte Press, 1974.
- B. Hill & L. Ross, ibid.
- B. Hill & L. Ross, ibid.
- Donald Spoto, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: A Life
(2000), 84–92; ISBN 0312977077
- [1]Special Exhibit Celebrates 50th Anniversary
of the Wedding of Jacqueline Bouvier and John F. Kennedy.
- Rosemary E. Reed Miller, The Threads of Time
(2007)
- Sally Bedell Smith, Grace and Power: The Private World of
the Kennedy White House (2004)
- Jan Pottker, Janet and Jackie: The Story of a Mother and
Her Daughter
- Time Magazine, April 26, 1963, ibid.
- Barbara Harrison & Daniel Terris, A Twilight Struggle:
The Life of John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1992)
- Molly Meijer Wertheime, Inventing a Voice: The Rhetoric of
American First Ladies of the Twentieth Century (2004)
- Carl Sferrazza Anthon, As We Remember Her: Jacqueline
Kennedy Onassis in the Words of Her Family and Friends
(2003)
- A Thousand Days of Magic page 153 by Oleg Cassini
- Looking Backward: A Reintroduction to American History, by
Lloyd C. Gardner, William L. O'Neill
- All the Presidents' Children: Triumph and Tragedy in the Lives
of America's First Families, by Doug Wead, 2004
- The Presidents' First Ladies, by Rae Lindsay, 2001
- Camel ride pic
- During the years when India under Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru
(whom President Kennedy strongly eschewed) was attempting to forge
a policy of non-alignment vis-a-vis the USA and the Soviet Union,
American and western public opinion in general was sympathetic to
India.
- Benign Competition - TIME
- Taraborrelli, J. Randy. Jackie, Ethel, Joan: Women of
Camelot. Warner Books: 2000. ISBN 0-446-52426-3
- William Manchester, Death of a
President, 1967
- W. Manchester, ibid.
- http://www.jfklancer.com/CHill.html
- ibid., p. 82–99
- Manchester, Death of a President, 1967
- Bugliosi ibid., p. 144–145.
- New York Times Her Majesty: Book Review
December 17, 2000, William Norwich: America's Queen — The Life of
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Sarah Bradford. Illustrated. 500 pp.
Viking, New York. "Bradford appears to concur with Lady Jean
Campbell, who attended President Kennedy's funeral and wired back
to The Evening Standard of London her
conviction that the first lady had 'given the American people from
this day on the one thing they always lacked — majesty.'"
- LIFE Magazine, December 6, 1963: Vol. 55, No. 23, ISSN
0024-3019
- Four Days in November: The Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, by Vincent Bugliosi
- The eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis: a portrait in her own
words, Volume 1, by Bill Adler
- The Georgetown Ladies' Social Club: Power, Passion, and
Politics in the Nation's Capital, by C. David Heymann
-
http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/20/obituaries/death-of-a-first-lady-jacqueline-kennedy-onassis-dies-of-cancer-at-64.html?pagewanted=6
- American Legacy: The Story of John & Caroline Kennedy, by
Clemens David Heymann
- Sweet Caroline: Last Child of Camelot, by Christopher P.
Andersen
- Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis at Arlington National Cemetery
website
- MoMa collection photo
- Nicholas A. Basbanes, A Gentle Madness: Bibliophiles,
Bibliomanes, and the Eternal Passion for Books. New York: Owl
Books, 1999, p. 32.
- Arlington National Cemetery Once More, A Service in
Arlington Mrs. Onassis Laid to Rest Beside the Eternal Flame
retrieved November 3, 2006
- [2]
- Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School
- Department of Environmental Protection, DEP Unveils Signs Renaming Central Park Reservoir As
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Reservoir, retrieved November 12,
2006
- http://www.gwu.edu/~map/hmap/index.cfm?bldg=27
External links