Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jackie was born on July 28, 1929, at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital in Southampton, New York, to Wall Street stockbroker John Vernou "Black Jack" Bouvier III and socialite Janet Norton Lee.[8] Jackie's mother was of Irish descent,[9] and her father had French, Scottish, and English ancestry.[10][lower-alpha 1] Named after her father, Jackie was baptized at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in Manhattan; she was raised in the Roman Catholic faith.[13] Jackie's younger sister, Caroline Lee, was born four years later on March 3, 1933.[14]

Jackie spent her early childhood years in Manhattan and at Lasata, the Bouviers' country estate in East Hampton on Long Island.[15] She looked up to her father, who likewise favored her over her sister, calling his elder child "the most beautiful daughter a man ever had".[16] Biographer, Tina Santi Flaherty, referred to Jackie's early confidence in herself, seeing a link to her father's praise and positive attitude to her, and her sister Lee Radziwill stated that she would not have gained her "independence and individuality" had it not been for the relationship she had with their father and paternal grandfather, John Vernou Bouvier Jr.[17][18] From an early age, Jackie was an enthusiastic equestrienne who successfully competed in the sport; horse-riding would remain a lifelong passion.[17][19] She took ballet lessons, was an avid reader, and excelled at learning languages. Jackie could speak English, French, Spanish, and Italian.[20] French was particularly emphasized in her upbringing.[21]

Six-year-old Jackie in 1935

In 1935, Jackie was enrolled in Manhattan's Chapin School, which she attended for Grades 1–7.[19][22] She was a bright student but often misbehaved; one of her teachers described her as "a darling child, the prettiest little girl, very clever, very artistic, and full of the devil".[23] Jackie's mother attributed her daughter's behavior to the way that she finished her assignments ahead of classmates and then acted out in boredom.[24] Her behavior improved after the headmistress warned her that none of her positive qualities would matter if she did not behave.[24]

The marriage of Jackie's parents was strained by her father's alcoholism and extramarital affairs; the family had also struggled with financial difficulties following the Wall Street Crash of 1929.[15][25] They separated in 1936 and divorced four years later, with the press publishing intimate details of the split.[26] According to her cousin John H. Davis, Jackie was deeply affected by the divorce and subsequently had a "tendency to withdraw frequently into a private world of her own."[15] When her mother married Standard Oil heir Hugh Dudley Auchincloss, Jr., Jackie and her sister did not attend the ceremony, because it was arranged quickly and travel was restricted due to World War II.[27] Jackie gained three step-siblings from Auchincloss' two previous marriages, Hugh "Yusha" Auchincloss III, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss; she formed the closest bond with Yusha, who became one of her most trusted confidants.[27] The marriage later produced two more children, Janet Jennings Auchincloss in 1945 and James Lee Auchincloss in 1947.

After the remarriage, Auchincloss' Merrywood estate in McLean, Virginia, became the Bouvier sisters' primary residence, although they also spent time at his other estate, Hammersmith Farm in Newport, Rhode Island, and in their father's homes in New York City and Long Island.[15][28] Although she retained a relationship with her father, Jackie also regarded her stepfather as a close paternal figure.[15] He gave her a stable environment and the pampered childhood she never would have experienced otherwise.[29] While Jackie adjusted to her mother's remarriage, she sometimes felt like an outsider in the WASP social circle of the Auchinclosses, attributing the feeling to her being Catholic as well as being a child of divorce, which was not common in that social group at that time.[30]

After seven years at Chapin, Jackie attended the Holton-Arms School in Northwest Washington, D.C. from 1942 to 1944, and Miss Porter's School in Farmington, Connecticut, from 1944 to 1947.[9] She chose Miss Porter's because it was a boarding school that allowed her to distance herself from the Auchinclosses, and because the school placed an emphasis on college preparatory classes.[31] In her senior class yearbook, Jackie was acknowledged for "her wit, her accomplishment as a horsewoman, and her unwillingness to become a housewife". Jackie later hired her childhood friend Nancy Tuckerman to be her Social Secretary at the White House.[32] She graduated among the top students of her class and received the Maria McKinney Memorial Award for Excellence in Literature.[33]

In the fall of 1947, Jackie entered Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, at that time a women's institution.[34] She had wanted to attend Sarah Lawrence College, closer to New York City, but her parents insisted that she choose the more isolated Vassar.[35] Jackie was an accomplished student who participated in the school's art and drama clubs and wrote for its newspaper.[15][36] Due to her dislike of Vassar's location in Poughkeepsie, she did not take an active part in its social life and instead traveled back to Manhattan for the weekends.[37] She had made her debut to high society in the summer before entering college and became a frequent presence in New York social functions. Hearst columnist Igor Cassini dubbed her the "debutante of the year".[38] Jackie spent her junior year (1949–1950) in France—at the University of Grenoble in Grenoble, and at the Sorbonne in Paris—in a study-abroad program through Smith College.[39] Upon returning home, she transferred to George Washington University in Washington, D.C., graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in French literature in 1951.[40] During the early years of her marriage to John F. Kennedy, she took continuing education classes in American history at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.[40]

While attending George Washington, Jackie won a twelve-month junior editorship at Vogue magazine; she had been selected over several hundred other women nationwide.[41] The position entailed working for six months in the magazine's New York City office and spending the remaining six months in Paris.[41] Before beginning the job, Jackie celebrated her college graduation and her sister Lee's high school graduation by traveling with her to Europe for the summer.[41] The trip was the subject of her only autobiography, One Special Summer, co-authored with Lee; it is also the only one of her published works to feature Jackie's drawings.[42] On her first day at Vogue, the managing editor advised her to quit and go back to Washington. According to biographer Barbara Leaming, the editor was concerned about Jackie's marriage prospects; she was 22 years of age and was considered too old to be single in her social circles. Jackie followed the advice, left the job and returned to Washington after only one day of work.[41]

Jackie moved back to Merrywood and was referred by a family friend to the Washington Times-Herald, where editor Frank Waldrop hired her as a part-time receptionist.[43] A week later she requested more challenging work, and Waldrop sent her to city editor Sidney Epstein, who hired her as an "Inquiring Camera Girl" despite her inexperience, paying her $25 a week.[44] He recalled, "I remember her as this very attractive, cute-as-hell girl, and all the guys in the newsroom giving her a good look."[45] The position required her to pose witty questions to individuals chosen at random on the street and take their pictures for publication in the newspaper alongside selected quotations from their responses.[15] In addition to the random "man on the street" vignettes, she sometimes sought interviews with people of interest, such as six-year-old Tricia Nixon. Jackie interviewed Tricia a few days after her father Richard Nixon was elected to the vice presidency in the 1952 election.[46] During this time, Jackie was briefly engaged to a young stockbroker named John Husted. After only a month of dating, the couple published the announcement in The New York Times in January 1952.[47] After three months, Jackie called off the engagement because she had found him "immature and boring" once she got to know him better.[48][49]

Jacqueline with her husband as he campaigns for the presidency in Appleton, Wisconsin, March 1960

On January 3, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a United States Senator from Massachusetts when he announced his candidacy for the presidency and launched his campaign nationwide. In the early months of the election year, Jackie accompanied her husband to campaign events such as whistle-stops and dinners.[75] Shortly after the campaign began, she became pregnant. Due to her previous high-risk pregnancies, she decided to stay at home in Georgetown.[76][77] Jackie subsequently participated in the campaign by writing a weekly syndicated newspaper column, Campaign Wife, answering correspondence, and giving interviews to the media.[23]

Despite her non-participation in the campaign, Jackie became the subject of intense media attention with her fashion choices.[78] On one hand, she was admired for her personal style; she was frequently featured in women's magazines alongside film stars and named as one of the 12 best-dressed women in the world.[79] On the other hand, her preference for French designers and her spending on her wardrobe brought her negative press.[79] In order to downplay her wealthy background, Jackie stressed the amount of work she was doing for the campaign and declined to publicly discuss her clothing choices.[79]

On July 13 at the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, the party nominated John F. Kennedy for President of the United States. Jackie did not attend the nomination due to her pregnancy, which had been publicly announced ten days earlier.[80] She was in Hyannis Port when she watched the September 26, 1960 debate—which was the nation's first televised presidential debate—between her husband and Republican candidate Richard Nixon, who was the incumbent vice president. Marian Cannon, the wife of Arthur Schlesinger, watched the debate with her. Days after the debates, Jackie contacted Schlesinger and informed him that John wanted his aid along with that of John Kenneth Galbraith in preparing for the third debate on October 13; she wished for them to give her husband new ideas and speeches.[81] On September 29, 1960, the Kennedys appeared together for a joint interview on Person to Person, interviewed by Charles Collingwood.[80]

Jackie, President John F. Kennedy, André Malraux, Marie-Madeleine Lioux Malraux, Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson prior to a dinner, May 1962. The First Lady is wearing a gown designed by Oleg Cassini[82]

Jackie and her husband during the visit of Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba and his spouse to the US, May 1961

On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy narrowly defeated Republican opponent Richard Nixon in the U.S. presidential election.[23] A little over two weeks later on November 25, Jackie gave birth to the couple's first son, John F. Kennedy, Jr.[23] She spent two weeks recuperating in the hospital, during which the most minute details of both her and her son's conditions were reported by the media in what has been considered the first instance of national interest in the Kennedy family.[83]

Her husband was sworn in as president on January 20, 1961.[23] Jackie insisted they also kept a family home away from the public eye and rented Glen Ora at Middleburg.[84] As a presidential couple, the Kennedys differed from the Eisenhowers by their political affiliation, youth, and their relationship with the media. Historian Gil Troy has noted that in particular, they "emphasized vague appearances rather than specific accomplishments or passionate commitments" and therefore fit in well in the early 1960s' "cool, TV-oriented culture".[85] The discussion about Jackie's fashion choices continued during her years in the White House, and she became a trendsetter, hiring American designer Oleg Cassini to design her wardrobe.[86] She was the first presidential wife to hire a press secretary, Pamela Turnure, and carefully managed her contact with the media, usually shying away from making public statements, and strictly controlling the extent to which her children were photographed.[87][88] The media portrayed Jackie as the ideal woman, which led academic Maurine Beasley to observe that she "created an unrealistic media expectation for first ladies that would challenge her successors".[88] Nevertheless, the First Lady attracted worldwide positive public attention and gained allies for the White House and international support for the Kennedy administration and its Cold War policies.[89]

Although Jackie stated that her priority as a first lady was to take care of the President and their children, she also dedicated her time to the promotion of American arts and preservation of its history.[90][91] The restoration of the White House was her main contribution, but she also furthered the cause by hosting social events that brought together elite figures from politics and the arts.[90][91] One of her unrealized goals was to found a Department of the Arts, but she did contribute to the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, established during Johnson's tenure.[91]

Jackie with Charles Collingwood during their televised tour of the restored White House in 1962

Jackie had visited the White House on two occasions before she became first lady: the first time as a grade-school tourist in 1941 and again as the guest of outgoing First Lady Mamie Eisenhower shortly before her husband's inauguration.[90] She was dismayed to find that the mansion's rooms were furnished with undistinguished pieces that displayed little historical significance[90] and made it her first major project as first lady to restore its historical character. On her first day in residence, she began her efforts with the help of interior decorator Sister Parish. She decided to make the family quarters attractive and suitable for family life by adding a kitchen on the family floor and new rooms for her children. The $50,000 that had been appropriated for this effort was almost immediately exhausted. Continuing the project, she established a fine arts committee to oversee and fund the restoration process and solicited the advice of early American furniture expert Henry du Pont.[90] To solve the funding problem, a White House guidebook was published, sales of which were used for the restoration.[90] Working with Rachel Lambert Mellon, Jackie also oversaw the redesign and replanting of the Rose Garden and the East Garden, which was renamed the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden after her husband's assassination. In addition, Jackie helped to stop the destruction of historic homes in Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C., because she felt these buildings were an important part of the nation's capital and played an essential role in its history.[90]

John and Jackie at Christmas 1961

Prior to Jackie's years as first lady, presidents and their families had taken furnishings and other items from the White House when they departed; this led to the lack of original historical pieces in the mansion. She personally wrote to possible donors in order to track down these missing furnishings and other historical pieces of interest.[92] Kennedy initiated a Congressional bill establishing that White House furnishings would be the property of the Smithsonian Institution rather than available to departing ex-presidents to claim as their own. She also founded the White House Historical Association, the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, the position of a permanent Curator of the White House, the White House Endowment Trust, and the White House Acquisition Trust.[93] She was the first presidential spouse to hire a White House curator.[87]

On February 14, 1962, Jackie, accompanied by Charles Collingwood of CBS News, took American television viewers on a tour of the White House. In the tour, she stated that "I feel so strongly that the White House should have as fine a collection of American pictures as possible. It's so important ... the setting in which the presidency is presented to the world, to foreign visitors. The American people should be proud of it. We have such a great civilization. So many foreigners don't realize it. I think this house should be the place we see them best."[93] The film was watched by 56 million television viewers in the United States,[90] and was later distributed to 106 countries. Jackie won a special Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Trustees Award for it at the Emmy Awards in 1962, which was accepted on her behalf by Lady Bird Johnson. Jackie was the only first lady to win an Emmy.[87]

Jackie and President Kennedy during their visit to Mexico, June 1962

Jackie at the Taj Mahal, Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India, March 1962

Throughout her husband's presidency and more than any of the preceding First Ladies, Jackie made many official visits to other countries, on her own or with the President.[40] Despite the initial worry that she might not have "political appeal", she proved popular among international dignitaries.[85] Before the Kennedys' first official visit to France in 1961, a television special was shot in French with the First Lady on the White House lawn. After arriving in the country, she impressed the public with her ability to speak French, as well as her extensive knowledge of French history.[94] At the conclusion of the visit, Time magazine seemed delighted with the First Lady and noted, "There was also that fellow who came with her." Even President Kennedy joked, "I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris – and I have enjoyed it!"[95][96]

From France, the Kennedys traveled to Vienna, Austria, where Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was asked to shake the President's hand for a photo. He replied, "I'd like to shake her hand first."[97] Khrushchev later sent her a puppy; the animal was significant for being the offspring of Strelka, the dog that had gone to space during a Soviet space mission.[98]

At the urging of U.S. Ambassador to India John Kenneth Galbraith, Jackie undertook a tour of India and Pakistan with her sister Lee Radziwill in 1962. The tour was amply documented in photojournalism as well as in Galbraith's journals and memoirs. The President of Pakistan, Ayub Khan, had given her a horse named Sardar as a gift. He had found out on his visit to the White House that he and the First Lady had a common interest in horses.[99] Life magazine correspondent Anne Chamberlin wrote that Jackie "conducted herself magnificently" although noting that her crowds were smaller than those that President Dwight Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II attracted when they had previously visited these countries.[100] In addition to these well-publicized trips during the three years of the Kennedy administration, she traveled to countries including Afghanistan, Austria, Canada,[101] Colombia, United Kingdom, Greece, Italy, Mexico,[102] Morocco, Turkey, and Venezuela.[40] Unlike her husband, Kennedy was fluent in Spanish, which she used to address Latin American audiences.[103]

In early 1963, Jackie was again pregnant, which led her to curtail her official duties. She spent most of the summer at a home she and the President had rented on Squaw Island, which was near the Kennedy compound on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. On August 7 (five weeks ahead of her scheduled due date), she went into labor and gave birth to a boy, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, via emergency Caesarean section at nearby Otis Air Force Base. The infant's lungs were not fully developed, and he was transferred from Cape Cod to Boston Children's Hospital, where he died of hyaline membrane disease two days after birth.[104][105] Jacqueline had remained at Otis Air Force Base to recuperate after the Caesarean delivery; her husband went to Boston to be with their infant son and was present when he died. On August 14, the President returned to Otis to take her home and gave an impromptu speech to thank nurses and airmen who had gathered in her suite. In appreciation, she presented hospital staff with framed and signed lithographs of the White House.[106]

The First Lady was deeply affected by Patrick's death[107] and proceeded to enter a state of depression.[108] However, the loss of their child had a positive impact on the marriage and brought the couple closer together in their shared grief.[107] Arthur Schlesinger wrote that while President Kennedy always "regarded Jackie with genuine affection and pride," their marriage "never seemed more solid than in the later months of 1963".[109] Jackie's friend Aristotle Onassis was aware of her depression and invited her to his yacht to recuperate. President Kennedy initially had reservations, but he relented because he believed that it would be "good for her". The trip was widely disapproved of within the Kennedy administration, by much of the general public, and in Congress. The First Lady returned to the United States on October 17, 1963. She would later say she regretted being away as long as she was but had been "melancholy after the death of my baby".[108]

On November 29, 1963—a week after her husband's assassination—Jackie was interviewed in Hyannis Port by Theodore H. White of Life magazine.[128] In that session, she compared the Kennedy years in the White House to King Arthur's mythical Camelot, commenting that the President often played the title song of Lerner and Loewe's musical recording before retiring to bed. She also quoted Queen Guinevere from the musical, trying to express how the loss felt.[129] The era of the Kennedy administration would subsequently often be referred to as the "Camelot Era," although historians have later argued that the comparison is not appropriate, with Robert Dallek stating that Jackie's "effort to lionize [her husband] must have provided a therapeutic shield against immobilizing grief."[130]

Jackie and her children remained in the White House for two weeks following the assassination.[131] Wanting to "do something nice for Jackie," President Johnson offered an ambassadorship to France to her, aware of her heritage and fondness for the country's culture, but she turned the offer down, as well as follow-up offers of ambassadorships to Mexico and the United Kingdom. At her request, Johnson renamed the Florida space center the John F. Kennedy Space Center a week after the assassination. Jackie later publicly praised Johnson for his kindness to her.[132]

Jackie spent 1964 in mourning and made few public appearances. It has been speculated that she may have been suffering from undiagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder due to intrusive flashbacks.[15][133][134][135] In the winter following the assassination, she and the children stayed at Averell Harriman's home in Georgetown. On January 14, 1964, Jackie made a televised appearance from the office of the Attorney General, thanking the public for the "hundreds of thousands of messages" she had received since the assassination and said she had been sustained by America's affection for her late husband.[136] She purchased a house for herself and her children in Georgetown but sold it later in 1964 and bought a 15th-floor penthouse apartment for $250,000 at 1040 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in the hopes of having more privacy.[137][138][139]

In the following years, Jackie attended selected memorial dedications to her late husband.[lower-alpha 4] She also oversaw the establishment of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, which is the repository for official papers of the Kennedy Administration.[143] Designed by architect I.M. Pei, it is situated next to the University of Massachusetts campus in Boston.

Despite having commissioned William Manchester's authorized account of President Kennedy's death, The Death of a President, Jackie was subject to significant media attention in 1966–1967 when she and Robert Kennedy tried to block the publication.[144][145][146] They sued publishers Harper & Row in December 1966; the suit was settled the following year when Manchester removed passages that detailed President Kennedy's private life. White viewed the ordeal as validation of the measures the Kennedy family, Jackie in particular, were prepared to take to preserve President Kennedy's public image.

During the Vietnam War in November 1967, Life magazine dubbed Jackie "America's unofficial roving ambassador" when she and David Ormsby-Gore, former British ambassador to the United States during the Kennedy administration, traveled to Cambodia, where they visited the religious complex of Angkor Wat with Chief of State Norodom Sihanouk.[147][148] According to historian Milton Osbourne, her visit was "the start of the repair to Cambodian-US relations, which had been at a very low ebb".[149] She also attended the funeral services of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Atlanta, Georgia, in April 1968, despite her initial reluctance due to the crowds and reminders of President Kennedy's death.[150]

After her husband's assassination, Jackie relied heavily on her brother-in-law Robert F. Kennedy; she observed him to be the "least like his father" of the Kennedy brothers.[151] He had been a source of support after she had suffered a miscarriage early in her marriage; it was he, not her husband, who stayed with her in the hospital.[152] In the aftermath of the assassination, Bobby became a surrogate father for her children until eventual demands by his own large family and his responsibilities as Attorney General required him to reduce attention.[136] He credited Jackie with convincing him to stay in politics, and she supported his 1964 run for United States Senator from New York.[153]

The January 1968 Tet offensive in Vietnam resulted in a drop in President Johnson's poll numbers, and Robert Kennedy's advisors urged him to enter the upcoming presidential race. When Art Buchwald asked him if he intended to run, Robert replied, "That depends on what Jackie wants me to do".[154][155] She met with him around this time and encouraged him to run after she had previously advised him to not follow Jack, but to "be yourself". Privately, she worried about his safety; she believed that Bobby was more disliked than her husband had been and that there was "so much hatred" in the United States.[156] She confided in him about these feelings, but by her own account, he was "fatalistic" like her.[154] Despite her concerns, Jackie campaigned for her brother-in-law and supported him,[157] and at one point even showed outright optimism that through his victory, members of the Kennedy family would once again occupy the White House.[154]

Just after midnight PDT on June 5, 1968, an enraged Palestinian gunman named Sirhan Sirhan mortally wounded Robert Kennedy minutes after he and a crowd of his supporters had been celebrating his victory in the California Democratic presidential primary.[158] Jackie rushed to Los Angeles to join his wife Ethel, her brother-in-law Ted Kennedy, and the other Kennedy family members at his hospital bedside. Bobby Kennedy never regained consciousness and died 26 hours after the shooting.[159]

After Robert Kennedy's death in 1968, Jackie reportedly suffered a relapse of the depression she had suffered in the days following her husband's assassination nearly five years prior.[160] She came to fear for her life and those of her two children, saying: "If they're killing Kennedys, then my children are targets ... I want to get out of this country".[161]

On October 20, 1968, Jackie married her long-time friend Aristotle Onassis, a wealthy Greek shipping magnate who was able to provide the privacy and security she sought for herself and her children.[161] The wedding took place on Skorpios, Onassis' private Greek island in the Ionian Sea.[162] After marrying Onassis, she took the legal name Jacqueline Onassis and consequently lost her right to Secret Service protection, which is an entitlement of a widow of a U.S. president. The marriage brought her considerable adverse publicity. The fact that Aristotle was divorced and his former wife Athina Livanos was still living led to speculation that Jackie might be excommunicated by the Roman Catholic church, though that concern was explicitly dismissed by Boston's Archbishop, Cardinal Richard Cushing as "nonsense".[163] She was condemned by some as a "public sinner",[164] and became the target of paparazzi who followed her everywhere and nicknamed her "Jackie O".[165]

In 1968, billionaire heiress Doris Duke, with whom Jackie was friends, appointed her as the vice president of the Newport Restoration Foundation. Jackie publicly championed the foundation.[166][167]

During their marriage, the couple inhabited six different residences: her 15-room Fifth Avenue apartment in Manhattan, her horse farm in New Jersey, his Avenue Foch apartment in Paris, his private island Skorpios, his house in Athens, and his yacht Christina O. Jackie ensured that her children continued a connection with the Kennedy family by having Ted Kennedy visit them often.[168] She developed a close relationship with Ted, and from then on he was involved in her public appearances.[169]

Aristotle Onassis' health deteriorated rapidly following the death of his son Alexander in a plane crash in 1973.[170] He died of respiratory failure at age 69 in Paris on March 15, 1975. His financial legacy was severely limited under Greek law, which dictated how much a non-Greek surviving spouse could inherit. After two years of legal wrangling, Jackie eventually accepted a settlement of $26 million from Christina Onassis—Aristotle's daughter and sole heir—and waived all other claims to the Onassis estate.[171]

Official portrait of Jackie at the White House

Kennedy's marriage to Aristotle Onassis caused her popularity to decline sharply among an American public who viewed it as a betrayal of the assassinated president,[200][201] Her lavish lifestyle as Onassis' trophy wife[202], in contrast to "the shy, selfless, and sacrificing mother the American public had come to respect" as First Lady,[203] led the press to portray her as "a spendthrift and a reckless woman"[204]

However, she took conscious control of her public image and, by the time of her death, succeeded in rehabilitating it.[205] By moving back to New York City after Onassis' death, working as an editor for Viking Press and Doubleday, focusing on her children and grandchildren, and participating in charitable causes, she reversed her "reckless spendthrift" image.[206] She also reestablished her relationship with the Kennedy family and supported the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.[207]

She remains one of the most popular First Ladies. She was featured 27 times on the annual Gallup list of the top 10 most admired people of the second half of the 20th century; this number is superseded by only Billy Graham and Queen Elizabeth II and is higher than that of any U.S. president.[208] In 2011, she was ranked in fifth place in a list of the five most influential First Ladies of the twentieth century for her "profound effect on American society".[209] In 2014, she ranked third place in a Siena College Institute survey,[210][211] behind Eleanor Roosevelt and Abigail Adams.[212] In 2015, she was included in a list of the top ten influential U.S. First Ladies due to the admiration for her based around "her fashion sense and later after her husband's assassination, for her poise and dignity".[213] In 2020, Time magazine included her name on its list of 100 Women of the Year. She was named Woman of the Year 1962 for her efforts in uplifting the American history and art.[214] Mary Tyler Moore's Dick Van Dyke Show character Laura Petrie, who symbolized the "feel-good nature" of the Kennedy White House, often dressed like Jackie as well.[215]

Jackie is seen as being customary in her role as First Lady,[216][217] though Magill argues her life was validation that "fame and celebrity" changed the way First Ladies are evaluated historically.[218] Hamish Bowles, curator of the "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, attributed her popularity to a sense of unknown that was felt in her withdrawal from the public which he dubbed "immensely appealing".[219] After Jackie's death, Kelly Barber referred to her as "the most intriguing woman in the world", furthering that her stature was also due to her affiliation with valuable causes.[220] Historian Carl Sferrazza Anthony summarized that the former First Lady "became an aspirational figure of that era, one whose privilege might not be easily reached by a majority of Americans but which others could strive to emulate".[208] Since the late 2000s, Jackie's traditional persona has been invoked by commentators when referring to fashionable political spouses.[221][222]

A wide variety of commentators have credited Jackie with restoring the White House; the list includes Hugh Sidey,[208][223] Leticia Baldrige,[224] Laura Bush,[225] Kathleen P. Galop,[226] and Carl Anthony.[227]

Tina Turner[228] and Jackie Joyner-Kersee[229] have cited Jackie as influences.

Jackie at a State dinner on May 22, 1962

Jackie became a global fashion icon during her husband's presidency. After the 1960 election, she commissioned French-born American fashion designer and Kennedy family friend Oleg Cassini to create an original wardrobe for her appearances as First Lady. From 1961 to 1963, Cassini dressed her in many of her most iconic ensembles, including her Inauguration Day fawn coat and Inaugural gala gown, as well as many outfits for her visits to Europe, India, and Pakistan. In 1961, Jackie spent $45,446 more on fashion than the $100,000 annual salary her husband earned as president.[230]

Jackie preferred French couture, particularly the work of Chanel, Balenciaga, and Givenchy, but was aware that in her role as First Lady, she would be expected to wear American designers' work.[231] After noticing that her taste for Paris fashion was being criticized in the press, she wrote to the fashion editor Diana Vreeland to ask for suitable American designers, particularly those who could reproduce the Paris look.[231] After considering the letter, which expressed Jackie's dislike of prints, and her preference for "terribly simple, covered-up clothes," Vreeland recommended Norman Norell, who was considered America's First Designer, and was known for his high-end simplicity and fine quality work. She also suggested Ben Zuckerman, another highly regarded tailor who regularly offered re-interpretations of Paris couture, and the sportswear designer Stella Sloat, who occasionally offered Givenchy copies.[231] Jackie's first choice for her Inauguration Day coat was originally a purple wool Zuckerman model that was based on a Pierre Cardin design, but she instead settled on a fawn Cassini coat and wore the Zuckerman for a tour of the White House with Mamie Eisenhower.[231]

In her role as First Lady, Kennedy preferred to wear clean-cut suits with a skirt hem down to middle of the knee, three-quarter sleeves on notch-collar jackets, sleeveless A-line dresses, above-the-elbow gloves, low-heel pumps, and pillbox hats.[230] Dubbed the "Jackie" look, these clothing items rapidly became fashion trends in the Western world. More than any other First Lady, her style was copied by commercial manufacturers and a large segment of young women.[40] Her influential bouffant hairstyle, described as a "grown-up exaggeration of little girls' hair," was created by Mr. Kenneth, who worked for her from 1954 until 1986.[232][233]

In her years after the White House, Jackie underwent a style change; her new looks consisted of wide-leg pantsuits, silk Hermès headscarves, and large, round, dark sunglasses. She even began wearing jeans in public.[234] She set a new fashion trend with beltless, white jeans with a black turtleneck that was never tucked in and instead pulled down over her hips.

Jackie and the President watching the America's Cup Race

Jackie acquired a large collection of jewelry throughout her lifetime. Her triple-strand pearl necklace, designed by American jeweler Kenneth Jay Lane, became her signature piece of jewelry during her time as First Lady in the White House. Often referred to as the "berry brooch," the two-fruit cluster brooch of strawberries made of rubies with stems and leaves of diamonds, designed by French jeweler Jean Schlumberger for Tiffany & Co., was personally selected and given to her by her husband several days prior to his inauguration in January 1961.[235] She wore Schlumberger's gold and enamel bracelets so frequently in the early and mid-1960s that the press called them "Jackie bracelets"; she also favored his white enamel and gold "banana" earrings. Jackie wore jewelry designed by Van Cleef & Arpels throughout the 1950s,[236] 1960s[236] and 1970s; her sentimental favorite was the Van Cleef & Arpels wedding ring given to her by President Kennedy.

Jackie was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame in 1965.[237][238] Many of her signature clothes are preserved at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum; pieces from the collection were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 2001. Titled "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years," the exhibition focused on her time as a First Lady.[239]

In 2012, Time magazine included Jackie on its All-TIME 100 Fashion Icons list.[240] In 2016, Forbes included her on the list 10 Fashion Icons and the Trends They Made Famous.[241]