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Within seven weeks of President Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, Jacqueline Kennedy received more than 800,000 condolence letters. Two years later, the volume of correspondence would exceed 1.5 million letters. For the next forty-six years the letters would remain essentially untouched. Historian Ellen Fitzpatrick reveals a remarkable human record of that devastating moment of Americans across generations, regions, races, political leanings and religions, in mourning and crisis. Reflecting on their sense of loss, their fears, and their hopes, the authors of these letters wrote an elegy for the fallen president that captured the soul of the nation. -
"This is a book about that most admirable of human virtues - courage. 'Grace under pressure', Ernest Hemingway defined it. And these are the stories of the pressures experienced by eight United States senators and the grace with which they endured them." (John F. Kennedy) During 1954-1955, John F. Kennedy, then a US senator, chose eight of his historical colleagues to profile for their acts of astounding integrity in the face of overwhelming opposition. These heroes include John Quincy Adams, Daniel Webster, Thomas Hart Benton, and Robert A. Taft. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1957, Profiles in Courage - now reissued, featuring a new introduction by Caroline Kennedy as well as Robert Kennedy's foreword written for the memorial edition of the volume in 1964 - resounds with timeless lessons on the most cherished of virtues and is a powerful reminder of the strength of the human spirit. It is, as Robert Kennedy states in the foreword, "not just stories of the past but a hook of hope and confidence for the future. What happens to the country, to the world, depends on what we do with what others have left us".
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Since 1962, the White House’s celebrated spaces and rich history have been portrayed for the public in a continually updated guidebook, The White House: An Historic Guide. The guidebook marked the beginning of White House history as a unique field of study. It was the first, and for its time, only comprehensive published work on a place that symbolized the history of America and all that the nation stood for to the American people. The first guidebook was published on July 4, 1962 with a first print run of 250,000 copies. Sales now exceed 5 million copies! It was First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy’s wish that such a book be written, and her letter opened the first edition, the first project of the White House Historical Association. Since that time eleven first ladies have continued the tradition, including First Lady Dr. Jill Biden who has written an opening letter for this new edition. Of the guidebook, First Lady Dr. Jill Biden has said: “As an educator, I hope this guidebook will inspire curiosity about the presidents and first families who reflect their time in history and help us learn from that past so that we can build a more just nation.”
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To truly understand the dynamics and magic of the Kennedy family, one must understand their passion for sailing and the sea. Many families sail together, but the Kennedys’ relationship with Victura, the 25-foot sloop purchased in 1932, stands apart. Throughout their brief lives, Joe Jr., Jack, and Bobby spent many hours racing Victura. Lack of effort in a race by one of his sons could infuriate Joseph P. Kennedy, and Joe Jr. and Jack ranked among the best collegiate sailors in New England. Likewise, Eunice emerged as a gifted sailor and fierce competitor, the equal of any of her brothers. The Kennedys believed that Jack’s experience sailing Victura helped him survive the sinking of his PT boat during World War II. In the 1950s, glossy Life magazine photos of Jack and Jackie on Victura’s bow helped define the winning Kennedy brand. Jack doodled sketches of Victura during Oval Office meetings, and it’s probable that his love of seafaring played a role in his 1961 decision to put a man on the moon, an enterprise he referred to as “spacefaring.” Ted loved Victura as much as any of his siblings did and, with his own children and the children of his lost brothers as crew, he sailed into his old age: past the shoals of an ebbing career, and into his eventual role as the “Lion of the Senate.” In Victura, James W. Graham charts the progress of America’s signature twentieth-century family dynasty in a narrative both stunningly original and deeply gripping. This true tale of one small sailboat is an invaluable contribution to our understanding of the great story of the Kennedys.
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JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 is a non-fiction book by pulitzer prize winning author Fredrik Logevall, released by Random House in 2020, that illuminates the education, military service, and political career of an American president whose early years set the stage for his knowledge of international relations. This knowledge provided him the ability as President to steer the nation through the most perilous deadlocks and short term victories of the cold war, including the disastrous attempt to thwart Castro's Communist takeover of Cuba at the Bay of Pigs, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and the beginning of military détente with the Soviet Union. JFK's presidency will be covered in a yet to be released companion volume also authored by Logevall. Paperback.
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In this magisterial work, celebrated historian David Nasaw tells the complete story of Joseph P. Kennedy, the founder of the twentieth century's most famous political dynasty. The Patriarch tracks Kennedy's astonishing passage from East Boston outsider to supreme Washington insider and key participant in the major events of this times: the booms and busts, the Depression and the New Deal, two world wars, a cold war and the birth of the New Frontier. In this pioneering biography, Nasaw draws on never-before-published archival materials and interviews with family and friends to reveal the full impact of Kennedy's legacy, paying particular attention to the lives of the children he raised. In studying Kennedy's journey, we relive the history of the American Century.
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We can't seem to get enough of Ben Franklin - the thrifty inventor-statesman of the revolutionary era with remarkable achievements in publishing, business, politics, diplomacy and invention. A man so confident in his own immortality that he tempted lighting to strike the same place twice. We know all about the key and the kite, the post offices, the libraries, the bifocals, the fire departments, and the almanacs. But what about the woman who raised his children, ran his businesses, built their house and fought off angry mobs at gunpoint while he traipsed about England? Author Nancy Rubin Stuart is an award-winning author and journalist whose eight nonfiction books focus upon women and social history.
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In December 1962, Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa set sail from Paris to New York for what was perhaps the riskiest art exhibition ever mounted. The driving force behind the undertaking was First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy who overcame the fierce objections of art officials who feared the journey would ruin the world's most celebrated smile. As "Mona Mania" swept the nation, nearly two million people attended exhibits in Washington, D.C., and New York City. Jacqueline Kennedy had succeeded in igniting a national love affair with the arts. Acclaimed biographer Margaret Leslie Davis tells the story of this tantalizing saga filled with international intrigue and the irresistible charm of Camelot and its queen. Portions of the sale of this book benefit the White House Historical Association.
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In John F. Kennedy and the Politics of Faith Patrick Lacroix explores the intersection of religion and politics in the era of Kennedy’s presidency. In doing so Lacroix challenges the established view that the postwar religious revival disappeared when President Eisenhower left office and that the contentious election of 1960, which carried John F. Kennedy to the White House, struck a definitive blow to anti-Catholic prejudice. Where most studies on the origins of the Christian right trace its emergence to the first battles of the culture wars of the late 1960s and early 1970s, echoing the Christian right’s own assertion that the “secular sixties” were a decade of waning religiosity in which faith-based groups largely eschewed political engagement, Lacroix persuasively argues for the Kennedy years as an important moment in the arc of American religious history. Lacroix analyzes the numerous ways in which faith-based engagement with politics and politicians' efforts to mobilize denominational groups did not evaporate in the early 1960s. Rather, the civil rights movement, major Supreme Court rulings, events in Rome, and Kennedy's own approach to recurrent religious controversy reshaped the landscape of faith and politics in the period.
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The #1 New York Times bestselling authors of Mrs. Kennedy and Me reveal never-before-told stories of Secret Service Agent Clint Hill’s travels with Jacqueline Kennedy through Europe, Asia, and South America. Featuring more than two hundred rare and never-before-published photographs. 304 pages, Hardcover.
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A leading civil rights historian places Robert Kennedy for the first time at the center of the movement for racial justice of the 1960s—and shows how many of today’s issues can be traced back to that pivotal time.
History, race, and politics converged in the 1960s in ways that indelibly changed America. In Justice Rising, a landmark reconsideration of Robert Kennedy’s life and legacy, Patricia Sullivan draws on government files, personal papers, and oral interviews to reveal how he grasped the moment to emerge as a transformational leader. -
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