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Jacqueline "Jackie" Lee Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier / ˈ b uː v i eɪ /; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American writer, book editor, and socialite who served as the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy.
- Overview
- Early life
- Marriage to John F. Kennedy and 1960 election
- First lady and tragedy
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, née Jacqueline Lee Bouvier, was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York.
Who were the husbands of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis?
Jacqueline Lee Bouvier married future U.S. president John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953. Jacqueline Kennedy's second husband was the Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, whom she married in October 1968.
What was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis known for?
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was noted for her style and elegance. As first lady, she made the White House a showcase for America’s most talented and accomplished individuals, and worked to restore the White House to its original elegance and to protect its holdings. Following the assassination of her husband President Kennedy, her quiet dignity brought an outpouring of admiration from Americans and people all over the world.
Who were the children of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis?
Jacqueline was the elder of two daughters of Janet Lee and John (“Black Jack”) Bouvier III, a stock speculator. As a child, she developed the interests she would still relish as an adult: horseback riding, writing, and painting. In 1942, after her parents had divorced and her mother married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., a wealthy lawyer, Jacqueline divided her time between the family’s Merrywood estate in Virginia and Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island.
At age 15 she began attending boarding school, and in 1947 she enrolled at Vassar College. During her junior year abroad, while studying at the Sorbonne, she polished her French and solidified her affinity for French culture and style, which she sometimes associated with her adored father. She graduated from George Washington University in 1951 and took a job as a reporter-photographer at the Washington Times-Herald. She notably covered the coronation (1952) of Elizabeth II.
In 1951 Jacqueline met John F. Kennedy, son of Rose and Joseph P. Kennedy and a popular congressman from Massachusetts, and two years later, after he became a U.S. senator, he proposed marriage. On September 12, 1953, the couple wed in St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The early years of their marriage included considerable disappointment and sadness. John underwent spinal surgery, and she suffered a miscarriage and delivered a stillborn daughter. Their luck appeared to change with the birth of a healthy daughter, Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, on November 27, 1957. Three years later John announced that he was running for president, and Jacqueline initially traveled with her husband. However, after becoming pregnant again, she stayed at home on the advice of her doctors but continued to be involved in the campaign. She notably wrote “Campaign Wife,” a weekly news column. On November 8, 1960, John was narrowly elected president, and weeks later Jacqueline gave birth to a son, John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Britannica Quiz
The youngest first lady in nearly 80 years, Jacqueline left a distinct mark on the job. During the 1960 election campaign, she hired Letitia Baldrige, who was both politically savvy and astute on matters of etiquette, to assist her as social secretary. Through Baldrige, Jacqueline announced that she intended to make the White House a showcase for America’s most talented and accomplished individuals, and she invited musicians, actors, and intellectuals—including Nobel Prize winners—to the executive mansion.
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Her most-enduring contribution was her work to restore the White House to its original elegance and to protect its holdings. She established the White House Historical Association, which was charged with educating the public and raising funds, and she wrote the foreword to the association’s first edition of The White House: An Historic Guide (1962). To catalog the mansion’s holdings, Jacqueline hired a curator from the Smithsonian Institution, a job that eventually became permanent. Congress, acting with the first lady’s support, passed a law to encourage donations of valuable art and furniture and made White House furnishings of “artistic or historic importance” the “inalienable property” of the nation, so that residents could not dispose of them at will. After extensive refurbishing, Jacqueline led a nationally televised tour of the White House in February 1962.
During her short time in the White House, Jacqueline became one of the most popular first ladies. During her travels with the president to Europe (1961) and to Central and South America (1962), she won wide praise for her beauty, fashion sense, and facility with languages. Alluding to his wife’s immense popularity during their tour of France in 1961, President Kennedy jokingly reintroduced himself to reporters as the “the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris.” Parents named their daughters after Jacqueline, and women copied her bouffant hairstyle, pillbox hat, and flat-heeled pumps.
In November 1963 Jacqueline agreed to make one of her infrequent political appearances and accompanied her husband to Texas. (She had just returned from a vacation in Greece following the death of her newborn son, Patrick Bouvier.) As the president’s motorcade moved through Dallas, he was assassinated as she sat beside him; 99 minutes later she stood beside Lyndon Johnson in her blood-stained suit as he took the oath of office, an unprecedented appearance by a widowed first lady. On her return to the capital, Jacqueline oversaw the planning of her husband’s funeral, using many of the details of Abraham Lincoln’s funeral a century earlier. Her quiet dignity (and the sight of her two young children standing beside her during the ceremony) brought an outpouring of admiration from Americans and from all over the world.
- Betty Boyd Caroli
- Growing Up. Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York. Her father, John, was a wealthy stockbroker on Wall Street whose family had come from France in the early 1800s.
- Going to School. After kindergarten, Jackie started first grade at Miss Chapin’s School on East End Avenue in New York. One of her teachers, Miss Platt, thought Jackie was "a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil."
- Jacqueline Bouvier: The Inquiring Photographer. Jacqueline started her first job in the fall of 1951 as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Times-Herald newspaper.
- Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the United States. On January 20, 1961, John Fitzgerald Kennedy took the oath of office to become the nation's 35th president.
Learn about the life and legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the former first lady of the United States and a prominent figure in the arts and publishing world. From her early years as a journalist and socialite to her marriage to John F. Kennedy, her widowhood, her second marriage to Aristotle Onassis, and her post-White House life, discover how she became an international icon of style and sophistication.
Apr 3, 2014 · Learn about the life and legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the wife of President John F. Kennedy and a U.S. first lady. Explore her early years, her role as a cultural ambassador, her marriages and her death from cancer.
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May 8, 2019 · Learn about the life and legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, the wife of John F. Kennedy and the first lady of the United States. From her childhood in New York to her fashion sense, her White House restoration, her grief after the assassination of her husband, and her remarriage to Aristotle Onassis, discover how she became a cultural icon and a role model for women.
Learn about the life and legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy, the first lady who preserved and restored the White House and its collection. Find out how she supported her husband's presidency, traveled abroad, and coped with tragedy.
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