Based on five years of research, and with unprecedented cooperation from Kennedy family and associates, Laurence Leamer paints startling, in-depth portraits of the mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters who struggled to build and maintain the Kennedy dynasty--from steerage on an immigrant vessel to the slums of Boston, from the court of St. James to the White House. Photographs.
As Rose had said so many years ago, the Kennedys were like a nation unto themselves, with their own private language and customs. They invited friends into their lives, but there was always a distance between themselves and others. political dynasty. It is a story of epic proportions, brimming with triumph and tragedy, courage and compliance, self-sacrifice and self delusion. Boston, from the court of St James to the White House and beyond, this book paints in-depth portraits of the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters who stood beside some of the most dynamic men of the twentieth century through occasions of victory and great opulence, scandal and heartbreak. The lynchpin of the story is Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, President Kennedy's mother, born on 22 July 1890 and still alive today, who has presided over the successes and catastrophes with the same determinedly positive outlook that has become the Kennedy trademark. Here are revelations including the tragic and horrifying story of Rosemary, the oldest Kennedy daughter, who was retarded: the closely guarded account of Rose's response to Chappaquiddick; the family's private reaction to the William Kennedy Smith rape charge; and the truth behind Jackie's dignified battle to live and die in privacy. of relatives and close family associates, gaining access to hundreds of personal documents. Unusually, since the Kennedy family almost always shy away from discussing the past, seeing this as a means of psychological survival, Leamer gained the Kennedys' confidence and received unprecedented cooperation from them. The result is a revealing study of an American family who helped shape the political and social fabric of the twentieth century.
A bold new collection showcasing the trailblazing individuals who fought for women’s suffrage, honoring the Nineteenth Amendment’s centennial anniversary. On August 18, 1920, women in the United States secured their right to vote with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Their fight for suffrage took decades of campaigning and marching, protesting and picketing, speeches and imprisonments. Millions of women across the country gave their all to achieve victory. From Lucretia Mott, who stoked the first flames of the suffrage movement in the 1800s, to Alice Paul, the militant twentieth-century suffragist who helped clinch ratification, Women Win the Vote! maps the road to the Nineteenth Amendment through the lives of nineteen of these fierce and courageous women who paved the way. With vivid profiles of iconic figures like Sojourner Truth and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, as well as those who may be less well-known, like Mary Ann Shadd Cary and Adelina Otero-Warren, this vibrant collection celebrates the one hundredth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment and the daring individuals who upended tradition to empower future generations of women.
Rosemary (Rosie) Kennedy was born in 1918, the first daughter of a wealthy Bostonian couple who later would become known as the patriarch and matriarch of America’s most famous and celebrated family. Elizabeth Koehler was born in 1957, the first and only child of a struggling Wisconsin farm family. What, besides their religion, did these two very different Catholic women have in common? One person: Stella Koehler, a charismatic woman of the cloth who became Sister Paulus Koehler after taking her vows with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Assisi. Sister Paulus was Elizabeth's Wisconsin aunt. For thirty-five years―indeed much of her adult life―Sister Paulus was Rosie Kennedy’s caregiver. And a caregiver, tragically, had become necessary after Rosie, a slow learner prone to emotional outbursts, underwent one of America’s first lobotomies―an operation Joseph Kennedy was assured would normalize Rosie’s life. It did not. Rosie’s condition became decidedly worse. After the procedure, Joe Kennedy sent Rosie to rural Wisconsin and Saint Coletta, a Catholic-run home for the mentally disabled. For the next two decades, she never saw her siblings, her parents, or any other relative, the doctors having issued stern instructions that even the occasional family visit would be emotionally disruptive to Rosie. Following Joseph Kennedy’s stroke in 1961, the Kennedy family, led by mother Rose and sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver, resumed face to face contact with Rosie. It was also about then that a young Elizabeth Koehler began paying visits to Rosie. In this insightful and poignant memoir, based in part on Sister Paulus’ private notes and augmented by nearly one-hundred never-before-seen photos, Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff recalls the many happy and memorable times spent with the “missing Kennedy.”
A "coming-of-age memoir by a young woman who spent thirteen years as Jackie Kennedy's personal assistant and occasional nanny--and the lessons about life and love she learned from the glamorous [former] first lady"--Amazon.com.
The Kennedys endure as American icons because of the mix between power and vulnerability that so many of them embodied. Our fascination and connection to them comes most strongly through the wives, whose pain, heartbreak, and grief seemed immensely public and lonely and personal at the same time. The Tragic Lives of the Kennedy Wives examines five of the Kennedy matriarchs: Rose, Jackie, Ethel, Joan, and Vicki through the lens of their marriages, their religion, their families, their activism and most of all, their tragedies. An important and fascinating exploration into the side of Camelot that was never quite kept from the public eye.
Noting how Jackie's celebrity and devotion to privacy have for years precluded a more serious treatment, Perry's story illuminates Kennedy's immeasurable impact on the institution of the first lady. Perry illustrates the complexities of Jacqueline Bouvier's marriage to John F. Kennedy, and shows how she transformed herself from a reluctant political wife to an effective, confident presidential partner. Perry is especially illuminating in tracing the first lady's mastery of political symbolism and imagery, along with her use of television and state entertainment to disseminate her work to a global audience.
*A New York Times Bestseller* A major new biography of John F. Kennedy Jr. from a leading historian who was also a close friend, America’s Reluctant Prince is a deeply researched, personal, surprising, and revealing portrait of the Kennedy heir the world lost too soon. Through the lens of their decades-long friendship and including exclusive interviews and details from previously classified documents, noted historian and New York Times bestselling author Steven M. Gillon examines John F. Kennedy Jr.’s life and legacy from before his birth to the day he died. Gillon covers the highs, the lows, and the surprising incidents, viewpoints, and relationships that John never discussed publicly, revealing the full story behind JFK Jr.’s complicated and rich life. In the end, Gillon proves that John’s life was far more than another tragedy—rather, it’s the true key to understanding both the Kennedy legacy and how America’s first family continues to shape the world we live in today.
DON’T MISS FX’s FEUD: CAPOTE VS. THE SWANS—THE ORIGINAL SERIES BASED ON THE BESTSELLING BOOK—NOW AVAILABLE TO STREAM ON HULU! New York Times bestselling author Laurence Leamer reveals the complex web of relationships and scandalous true stories behind Truman Capote's never-published final novel, Answered Prayers—the dark secrets, tragic glamour, and Capote's ultimate betrayal of the group of female friends he called his "swans." "There are certain women," Truman Capote wrote, "who, though perhaps not born rich, are born to be rich." Barbara "Babe" Paley, Gloria Guinness, Marella Agnelli, Slim Hayward, Pamela Churchill, C. Z. Guest, Lee Radziwill (Jackie Kennedy's sister)—they were the toast of midcentury New York. Capote befriended them, received their deepest confidences, and ingratiated himself into their lives. Then, in one fell swoop, he betrayed them in the most surprising and shocking way possible. Bestselling biographer Laurence Leamer delves into the years following the acclaimed publication of Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1958 and In Cold Blood in 1966, when Capote struggled with a crippling case of writer's block. While enjoying all the fruits of his success, he was struck with an idea for what he was sure would be his most celebrated novel...one based on the remarkable, racy lives of his very, very rich friends. For years, Capote attempted to write what he believed would have been his magnum opus, Answered Prayers. But when he eventually published a few chapters in Esquire, the thinly fictionalized lives (and scandals) of his swans were laid bare for all to see, and he was banished from their high-society world forever. Laurence Leamer recreates the lives of these fascinating women, their friendships with Capote and one another, and the doomed quest to write what could have been one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
