Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (Jacqueline Lee Onassis)

Background

Jacqueline Lee Bouvier was born on July 28, 1929, in Southampton, New York, to stockbroker John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee. She spent her early years in Manhattan and at the family’s Long Island estate. Her younger sister was Caroline Lee Bouvier, later known as Lee Radziwill. Bouvier learned French, Spanish, and Italian, rode horses from an early age, took ballet lessons, and became an avid reader.

Her parents separated in 1936 and divorced in 1940. After her mother married Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr., the sisters lived chiefly at Merrywood, his estate in McLean, Virginia, while also spending time in Newport, Rhode Island, and New York. The marriage brought three step-siblings from Auchincloss’s earlier marriages and, later, two younger half-siblings. Bouvier remained connected to her father while also regarding Auchincloss as an important paternal figure.

Her upbringing crossed between Catholic family life and the largely Protestant social world of the Auchincloss family. She later married John F. Kennedy in 1953 and Aristotle Onassis in 1968. After Onassis’s death in 1975, she returned to the United States and lived principally in New York, with time on Martha’s Vineyard and at the Kennedy family compound in Massachusetts.

Education

Bouvier attended Chapin School in Manhattan, beginning in 1935, then Holton-Arms School in Washington, D.C., and Miss Porter’s School in Farmington, Connecticut, where she completed college-preparatory schooling in 1947. Chapin was a long-established girls’ school in New York; Holton-Arms and Miss Porter’s likewise provided girls’ education, with Miss Porter’s particularly oriented toward preparation for college. At Miss Porter’s she received the Maria McKinney Memorial Award for Excellence in Literature.

She entered Vassar College in 1947 and studied there before spending her junior year in France through a Smith College program. The University of Grenoble and the Sorbonne in Paris were the French institutions in which she studied during that year. Vassar was a women’s liberal-arts college, while Smith’s study-abroad program connected American undergraduate education with French academic settings. She then transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating in 1951 with a Bachelor of Arts in French literature. The university’s location in the national capital placed her studies within the city’s political and cultural life.

During the early years of her marriage, she took continuing-education classes in American history at Georgetown University. Georgetown, founded in the eighteenth century, is a Jesuit university in Washington and among the country’s oldest Catholic institutions of higher education.

Career

Bouvier began her professional life in journalism. While studying at George Washington University, she won a junior editorship at Vogue, but left after one day in 1951 and returned to Washington. Vogue was an influential American fashion magazine. In 1952 she joined the Washington Times-Herald as an inquiring photographer, asking questions of people on the street and taking their photographs for newspaper features. The Times-Herald was a Washington daily newspaper; she also covered public figures and was assigned to report on the coronation of Elizabeth II in London.

As first lady from 1961 to 1963, she made the White House restoration a major public project, seeking to recover and preserve the building’s historical character and furnishings. She established committees and trusts concerned with its preservation, helped create a permanent curatorial position, and promoted a guidebook to support restoration work. She also hosted cultural events and presented a televised White House tour in 1962, which received a special Emmy award. Her work in arts and historic preservation included support for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, established during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency, and advocacy for preserving Abu Simbel and historic buildings in Lafayette Square.

Her public role also included international cultural and diplomatic visits. She traveled with President Kennedy and independently, using her knowledge of French history and her fluency in French, Spanish, and Italian in engagements abroad. She visited France, Austria, India, and Pakistan, among other countries, and was received by political leaders and foreign publics. Her work in the White House took place during the Cold War, when cultural diplomacy was one means by which the United States presented itself internationally.

After returning to publishing, she became a consulting editor at Viking Press in 1975 and remained there until 1977. Viking was an American book publisher, and she resigned after controversy over the publication of a political novel. She joined Doubleday in New York as an associate editor in 1978 and became an editor in 1982, remaining with the company through 1994. Doubleday was a major American trade publisher. She worked on books in a range of genres, including history, memoir, and literature, and helped Michael Jackson develop his memoir Moonwalk.

Alongside publishing, she advocated for architectural and historic preservation. In the 1970s she led efforts to save Grand Central Terminal in New York from demolition and to secure its renovation. In the 1980s she opposed a proposed skyscraper at Columbus Circle that would have cast shadows over Central Park; that project was cancelled. She also supported the preservation of Olana, the former home of painter Frederic Edwin Church. In 1993, after being thrown from a horse during a fox hunt in Virginia, she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. She continued working until her illness became terminal and died in her Manhattan apartment on May 19, 1994.

Achievements

• Led the restoration of the White House during her years as first lady, helping preserve its historic character and furnishings and establishing lasting structures for its stewardship.

• Promoted American arts and cultural diplomacy through White House cultural events and international visits, and supported the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

• Helped save Grand Central Terminal from demolition and supported preservation campaigns for historic buildings in Lafayette Square and Olana.

• Worked as a book editor at Viking Press and Doubleday, including as editor of Michael Jackson’s memoir Moonwalk.

Works

More photos

• autobiography

  • One Special Summer

    (Travel memoir co-authored with her sister Lee Radziwill; ...)

• history book

  • The Cartoon History of the Universe

    (Larry Gonick’s book; Onassis worked on it as an editor at...)

• memoir

  • Moonwalk

    (Michael Jackson’s memoir, edited by Onassis, who also wro...)

    1988

• novel

  • The Wedding

    (Dorothy West’s novel; Onassis encouraged West to complete...)

    1995

• novel trilogy

  • The Cairo Trilogy

    (English translation of Naguib Mahfouz’s trilogy, edited b...)

• syndicated newspaper column

  • Campaign Wife

    (Weekly column written during John F. Kennedy’s presidenti...)

    1960

Religion

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. Catholicism, the largest Christian tradition, is organized around sacramental worship and the authority of the Church; her baptism and later confirmation took place at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan.

Membership

Onassis served as a trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, an institution devoted to American art and artists. She also became vice president of the Newport Restoration Foundation, which works to preserve historic buildings and places in Newport, Rhode Island. Her participation in these organizations complemented her wider interest in art and architectural preservation.

• Trustee

  Whitney Museum of American Art , United States

• Vice president

  Newport Restoration Foundation , United States

  1968

Interests

• Horse riding, reading, ballet, fashion, the arts, and historic preservation.

Connections

Onassis was the daughter of John Vernou Bouvier III and Janet Norton Lee, and the sister of Caroline Lee Bouvier, known as Lee Radziwill. Her mother’s second husband, Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr., was a close paternal figure in her life. Her children were Caroline Kennedy, John F. Kennedy Jr., Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, and Arabella Kennedy; Patrick died two days after his birth in 1963, and Arabella was stillborn.

She married John F. Kennedy on September 12, 1953. Their daughter Caroline and son John Jr. survived infancy. After Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Robert F. Kennedy supported Onassis and her children; she later encouraged and supported his 1968 presidential campaign. In 1968 she married Aristotle Onassis, a Greek shipping magnate, and remained married to him until his death in 1975. Her later companion was Maurice Tempelsman, an industrialist and diamond merchant. Caroline’s children Rose, Tatiana, and John Bouvier made Onassis a grandmother.

Father:

John Vernou Bouvier III

Wall Street stockbroker.

Mother:

Janet Norton Lee

Socialite; later married Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr.

Sister:

Caroline Lee Bouvier

Known publicly as Lee Radziwill; co-authored One Special Summer with Onassis.

stepfather:

Hugh D. Auchincloss Jr.

Stockbroker and lawyer.

husband:

John F. Kennedy

Thirty-fifth president of the United States.

husband:

Aristotle Onassis

Shipping magnate.

Daughter:

Caroline Kennedy

Her daughter with John F. Kennedy.

Son:

John F. Kennedy Jr.

Her son with John F. Kennedy.

Son:

Patrick Bouvier Kennedy

Died two days after his birth in August 1963.

Daughter:

Arabella Kennedy

Stillborn daughter of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy.

brother-in-law:

Robert F. Kennedy

Supported Onassis and her children after John F. Kennedy’s assassination; she later encouraged and supported his presidential campaign.

companion:

Maurice Tempelsman

Belgian-born industrialist and diamond merchant who was also her personal financial adviser.

References

• Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis: A Life Biography by Donald Spoto, published by Macmillan.
  2000
• The Eloquent Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis – A Portrait in Her Own Words Book by Bill Adler presenting material in her own words.
  2004
• The Bouviers: Portrait of an American family John H. Davis’s account of the Bouvier family.
  1995
• The Threads of Time Book by Rosemary E. Reed Miller.
  2007
• Grace and Power: The Private World of the Kennedy White House Sally Bedell Smith’s account of the Kennedy White House.
  2004
• JFK in the Senate John T. Shaw’s study of John F. Kennedy’s Senate career.
  2013
• Designing Camelot: The Kennedy White House Restoration James Abbott’s account of the White House restoration.
  1997
• Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier Barbara A. Perry’s study of Onassis’s years as first lady.
  2009
• The Most Dangerous Area in the World: John F. Kennedy Confronts Communist Revolution in Latin America Stephen G. Rabe’s study of Kennedy administration policy in Latin America.
  1999
• Historical Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy Michael Beschloss’s publication of interviews concerning life with John F. Kennedy.
  2011