An American Icon
“…[Jacqueline] might almost have been a movie star. Her picture appeared on countless magazine covers, and ‘the Jackie look’ was widely imitated” (Gerston 53). She has been known to be one of the most glamorous first ladies there ever was, and women across America wanted to emulate her style, grace and strength due to the admiration many held for her. Despite Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’ elite yet turbulent childhood, she became an American icon who influenced women through her ability to persevere and stay true to herself, accomplishing the American Dream along the way.
Onassis was born in the 1920’s in Southampton, Long Island, New York to John Vernou Bouvier III, a Wall Street broker, and Janet Lee (Caroli). She had a younger sister, Caroline Lee, and both were raised in an affluent, wealthy lifestyle (“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis”). Onassis spent the winters in New York City where she attended the Chapin School and the summers in East Hampton, Long Island (“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis”). Throughout her childhood, Onassis “developed the interests she would relish as an adult: horseback riding, writing and painting” (Caroli). When her parents divorced in 1942, Jacqueline’s mother married Hugh Auchincloss, Jr. (“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis”). At this time in her life, she split her time between “the family's Merrywood estate in Virginia and Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island” (Caroli). Onassis had an elite education, attending boarding school from the age of 15 and Vassar College after her graduation from high school (“Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis”). During her junior year of college, Onassis studied at the “Sorbonne in Paris”, where “she polished her French and solidified her affinity for French culture and...
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...rself and her children. She truly is an American icon who will be remembered as a trend-setting first lady, loving mother and strong, independent woman of her time.
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Swisher, Clarice, People Who Made History: John F. Kennedy (San Diego: Greenhaven Press, Inc. 2000)
Bugliosi, Vincent. Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2007. Print.
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