The impact of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy on the nation's capital

Résumé du document

When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected as the President in 1960, he was the youngest President in the history of the United States. Deciding to bring a new style, a new look and a new vitality to the White House, he had a major asset: his wife. Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy was only thirty-one, but she was profoundly influenced by the American taste. Behind the shy and smiling First Lady was a determined woman, with a strong sense of art and history. Jacqueline Kennedy knew Washington DC very well. By 1960, she had already lived there for eighteen years. Her family had a house in Merrywood, Virginia, and she had lived in Washington as a photographer and a columnist ? the "Inquiring Camera Girl? ? for the Washington Times-Herald.

Extraits

[...] The paintings of the White House in 1960 were often poor copies of portraits of presidents and their wives. A Special Committee for White House Paintings was created, and more than one hundred fifty paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures were gathered within two years. The artist James W. Fosburgh headed the Committee. A White House curator and registrar were also established. Lorraine Waxman Pearce, who worked for Mr. du Pont at the Winterthur Museum, was appointed as the first White House curator. The action of Mrs Kennedy attracted a flood of donations. [...]

[...] The Kennedy Women. p I want to make the White House the first house in the land she told Clark Clifford on February 6th 1961. Flaherty, Tina Santi. What Jackie Taught Us. p Bradford, Sarah. America's Queen. p Guthrie, Lee. Jackie: The Price of the Pedestal. p Bowles, Hamish. Jacqueline Kennedy: the White House Years. p Flaherty, Tina Santi. What Jackie Taught Us. p.74 Bowles, Hamish. Jacqueline Kennedy: the White House Years. [...]

[...] But the Kennedys gave a new dimension to the arts and humanities. Mrs Kennedy attracted artists and intellectuals in Washington by welcoming them with “exquisite food, beautiful table décor, and stirring after-dinner performances”[11]. In a thousand days, the Kennedys organized sixteen state dinners; each of them was followed by performances in the East Room. The most spectacular and most criticized dinner was in honor of Pakistan President Ayub Khan, on July Since she had been received by French President de Gaulle at Versailles, Mrs. [...]

[...] Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is her most enduring contribution to the development of arts in the Nation's Capital with the White House restoration. Some of her initiatives were carried on by the Johnson administration. Lady Bird's main project was the transformation of Washington into a “garden city”. She guided highway beautification legislation through Congress to make the capital a handsome model for the whole country, thanks to Jackie's groundwork. Nevertheless, the most important legacy of Jacqueline Kennedy is intangible. Tina S. Flaherty wrote that Jackie had been an “Unofficial Minister of Culture”[17], but she did much more for the American people. [...]

[...] p Mills, Jean. Moments with Jackie. p She told Robert McNamara I'm a freak know. - Keogh, Pamela Clarke. Jackie Style. p What Jackie Taught Us. p. [...]