kennedy

Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis (née Bouvier ; July 28, 1929 – May 19, 1994) was an American socialite, writer, photographer, and book editor who served as the first lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, as the wife of President John F. Kennedy. A popular first lady, she endeared herself to the American public with her devotion to her family, dedication to the historic preservation of the White House, the campaigns she led to preserve and restore historic landmarks and architecture along with her interest in American history, culture and arts. During her lifetime, she was regarded as an international fashion icon and her work as a cultural ambassador of the United States made her very popular globally.After graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in French literature from George Washington University in 1951, Bouvier started working for the Washington Times-Herald as an inquiring photographer. The following year, she met then-Congressman John F. Kennedy at a dinner party in Washington. He was elected to the Senate that same year, and the couple married on September 12, 1953, in Newport, Rhode Island. They had four children, two of whom died in infancy. Following her husband's election to the presidency in 1960, Kennedy was known for her highly publicized restoration of the White House and emphasis on arts and culture as well as for her style. At age 31, she was the third-youngest first lady of the United States when her husband was inaugurated, and was named Time magazine's Woman of the Year in 1962.
Kennedy's work as a cultural ambassador had a significant impact on U.S. foreign relations and diplomacy, promoting cross-cultural understanding and appreciation to help establish stronger ties between the United States and other nations. As First Lady, Kennedy traveled extensively, using her French, Spanish, and Italian language skills to address some foreign audiences in their native languages and demonstrating respect for their cultures. In 1962, she undertook a successful "goodwill" tour of India and Pakistan, accompanied by her sister, Princess Lee Radziwill. Her speeches were generally well-received, praised for their eloquence, and helped foster better relationships between the United States and foreign leaders, most notably the notoriously temperamental Charles de Gaulle and Nikita Khrushchev, to whose bragging about Soviet superiority Kennedy famously replied, "Oh, Mr. Chairman, please don't bore me with statistics."As First Lady, Kennedy undertook a major restoration of the White House state rooms, replacing modern department store furniture with period pieces and art from the White House collection and reacquiring other significant pieces removed from the White House during previous administrations. Kennedy worked closely with the Fine Arts Committee she established in 1961 with American antique expert Henry Francis du Pont, American decorator Sister Parish, and French designer Stéphane Boudin, with the goal of presenting the presidency in the sort of culturally significant surroundings typical of official residences in Europe and elsewhere. Her efforts helped to establish the White House as an important museum of American history, with a celebrated emphasis on the performing arts.
In 1961, Congress passed a Kennedy-backed law declaring objects of historic or artistic interest from the White House collection the official property of the White House. Kennedy then established the White House Historical Association to continue her efforts to acquire and preserve new and existing objects relevant to the presidency, funded partly through sale of the first White House guidebook. Published in 1962 with a foreword from Kennedy, The White House: An Historic Guide, has been updated continuously since, supplemented by subsequent WHHA publications, exhibits, and educational programs designed to showcase the rich history and cultural significance of the White House.
After a 1962 Emmy Award-winning televised tour of her White House restoration work, Kennedy turned her attention to historic Lafayette Square just north of the White House. Believing that plans for modern government buildings on the site would destroy the 19th century character of the White House campus, Kennedy lobbied the General Services Administration, the National Park Service, and her husband to not only preserve buildings that could be saved, but to rethink how new construction could better suit the Square's heritage. Kennedy, her husband, and architect John Carl Warnecke worked closely together on revised plans with Lafayette Square added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
Kennedy also influenced her husband's 1963 Executive Order establishing the President's Advisory Committee on the Arts, which led to the 1964 creation of the National Council on the Arts, and the 1965 creation of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Both Kennedys were also active supporters of the National Cultural Center that ultimately opened in 1971 as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.Following the assassination and funeral of her husband in 1963, Kennedy and her children first settled in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington before moving to New York City with the hope of greater anonymity. Turning down President Johnson's offers of official ambassadorial roles, Kennedy instead served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNESCO from 1965 to 1977, traveling to various countries around the world and advocating for cultural preservation as a means of promoting cross-cultural understanding and appreciation. Her efforts helped to mobilize international support for the preservation of historic sites and monuments, including the Angkor temples in Cambodia, which are now recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites; the process of placing the Temple of Dendur at Manhattan's Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1978 had its origins in 1961, when with deeply researched, handwritten notes Kennedy urged her husband to seek Congressional funding to save it and other monuments threatened by significant recurring floods in Egypt's Valley of the Kings.
After Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, Kennedy sought protection from what she viewed as a troubled America by marrying Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, igniting controversy among those who preferred her image as President Kennedy's widow to that of the glamorous tabloid creation "Jackie O." Following Onassis's death in 1975, and despite a rumored $26 million settlement from her second husband's estate, Onassis went back to work, becoming a book editor first at Viking Press and then at Doubleday. She continued her work for historic preservation, playing a leading role in the 1975 fight to save Grand Central Terminal from demolition by lending her rarely deployed celebrity to a press conference at which she remarked,"If we don’t care about our past we can’t have very much hope for our future."In 1979, the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum opened in Boston, with Onassis in attendance. In the early 1980s, she began the last romantic relationship of her life with longtime acquaintance Maurice Tempelsman, a Belgian-American diamond merchant. In 1981, Onassis built a home for herself on Martha's Vineyard, where in 1993 she and Tempelsman hosted President and Mrs. Clinton.
Later in 1993, doctors discovered a swollen lymph node after Onassis was thrown from her horse in the Virginia Hunt Country where she and President Kennedy had once built a house. In early 1994, signs of more serious illness led to a diagnosis of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a type of blood cancer. Despite a promising prognosis, the cancer quickly spread, with Onassis choosing to discontinue medical treatment that spring. After a final hospital stay, Onassis returned to her Fifth Avenue apartment, where she died surrounded by family and friends around 10:15 PM on May 19. Following a private family funeral at New York's St. Ignatius Loyola Roman Catholic Church, attended by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson, Onassis's casket was flown to Virginia for burial alongside President Kennedy and their two infant children in Arlington National Cemetery. President Clinton delivered graveside remarks, saying that, "In the end, she cared most about being a good mother to her children, and the lives of Caroline and John leave no doubt that she was that, and more."Years after her death, Onassis ranks as one of the most popular and recognizable first ladies in American history. In 1996, a Sotheby's auction of her personal effects added $34 million to her estate. In 1999, Onassis was listed as one of Gallup's Most-Admired Men and Women of the 20th century. In 2001, the Metropolitan Museum of Art hosted Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years-Selections from the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum, as the focus of its Costume Institute's famed Met Gala and Onassis has remained a highly influential style icon in the years since. In 2017, Natalie Portman received a Best Actress Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of Onassis in the art house film "Jackie." Surveys of historians conducted periodically by the Siena College Research Institute since 1982 have consistently found Onassis to rank among the most highly regarded first ladies by the assessments of historians.

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