so that's what i'm saying. you don't expect to be loved, you don't expect to be part of the in crowd. and, yes, i'm a woman of color and something to prove is always something to prove. when you're a woman in a male-dominated profession, you'll always have something to prove. again, life is life. me, i happen to be black, but you can be from the wrong country, the wrong school, you can be short, fat, greek, it doesn't make a difference. if you're not welcomed, what are you going to do about it? you'll always have something to prove. i'm a woman, i'm a mother, and i'm a wife. so with me there's another layer of responsibility. now, we have powerful women today, powerful women. we have a surgeon general, that's a woman. we have supreme court justices that are women. condoleezza rice, secretary of state. but in my situation there was another level of obligation and responsibility, and that is having kids. now, what do you do? again, at that same hospital i

delivered about 5:30 in the around, and i'm ripping off my clothes. i have to get home, what am i going to have for dinner? one of my male colleagues was in the lounge just relaxing. aren't you going to get home? no, i'm going to sit for a few hours, i'll let peggy feed 'em, put 'em down. that's not me. i'm racing down route 80, what's for dip, did i get the sneakers for my son, the art work for my daughter? and that's the difference between being a woman professional. i looed and wanted -- loved and wanted to be an obstetrician. my mother would always say no amount of success in your profession can make up for being a failure at home. that's what i'm saying. many of my colleagues are wealthy. they may have children lost to drug, suicide, emotional disturbances. i knew whatever decisions i had

to make had to incorporate my children. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. >> up next, we continue our first lady programming with jacqueline kennedy. barbara perry, former judicial fellow at the u.s. supreme court, recounts the transformative effect mrs. kennedy had on the white house. this is about an hour. >> thank you, don, so much for putting this series together, for that very nice introduction. thank you, too, to mary and felicia as well at the u.s. capitol historical society. don and i were chatting that it's especially appropriate to talk about jacqueline kennedy at a historical society such as this because it was mrs. kennedy who kicked off the movement to have historical societies for our branches of government. it was the white house that had

the very first historical society founded by mrs. kennedy in 1961, and then the capitol historical society followed just one year later in 1962. and then a few years later, 1974, the supremes as we call them, the u.s. supreme court his to historical society was founded. we're dateful because these associations are helpful in keeping alive the history of these three very important branches of our government. so welcome to all of you today. i want to begin with a question, actually two questions for you. and i just spoke to c-span. they said since this is going to be informal, we don't have to have the microphone, so i'll repeat your answers, but the first question is going to be, if i can get my powerpoint going here. one moment. there we go. what is your first memory of a first lady? and i know some of you, so i can

call on you if no one is brave enough to raise a hand. [laughter] i know that you all have memories, tell me. yes. >> eleanor roosevelt when i was a child. >> eleanor roosevelt when you were a teeny, tiny child. >> barely crawling. >> with just an infant. somehow you remember eleanor roosevelt. what do you recall about her? >> impressive speaker. i have to recall looking back and so, you know, to me she came across as rather dowdy, but i'm sure at the time she didn't. >> well, we will talk about that and, certainly, next week i know with maureen beasley you'll be talking with her about eleanor roosevelt, and it was my to serve as a reviewer, so you will be in for a real treat. keep that thought about the impressive speaking abilities of eleanor roosevelt and of her fashions pause we're going to -- because we're going to compare

and contrast jacqueline kennedy. other memories, your first memory of a first lady. yes. >> well, mine is eleanor roosevelt. i was born in washington shortly before the new deal was. my mother was a newspaper reporter, she covered eleanor roosevelt. she was a friend of eleanor roosevelt. i got invited to white house parties. >> wonderful. wonderful. so we have someone here in the audience who was based in washington at the start of the new deal. her mother covered eleanor roosevelt. this lady was invited to parties at the white house. everyone here has an interesting story. i've given this talk fairly frequently when i was at sweetbriar college, and i asked this very question, who's the first lady you can remember, and a nice lady in the front said mrs. calvin coolidge. i said, we have a winner.

no one has topped that. any more recent first ladies that is your first memory? yes. >> i was, again, very, very little, i remember thinking how goofy looking mamie eisenhower. [laughter] >> oh, dear. we'll talk about the looks of the first ladies who preceded jacqueline kennedy. mamie eisenhower was, of course, the immediate predecessor. so, again, if we can move on, tell me who's your favorite first lady. now, if you've already spoken, you're not allowed to speak again. this is how the supreme court runs its conferences. you're not allowed to give two opinions on a case until everyone has been allowed to give one. so tell me who your favorite first lady is. >> jackie kennedy. >> jackie kennedy, a likely suspect since you're here today to hear about jackie kennedy, and i'm told biton that was one

of the largest turnouts, and i don't doubt it. jackie kennedy still has a tremendous hold on the american imagination. other first ladies you would consider your favorite. okay? whale, let's move on then -- well, let's move on then. why is it that jackie kennedy maintains this hold on the american imagination? this is what my talk is going to be about, so all of the slides will illustrate why this is, but here are some examples. i won't make you raise your hand to say if you watch qvc for home shopping purposes. i, of course, only see it when i'm just racing through channel surfing, i would never stop. occasionally, i do. i'll tell you what catches my eye, when he was the jacqueline kennedy jewelry for sale. wouldn't it be great if we could all afford the actual kind of precious stones and jewelry that she had? these, of course, are costume reproductions of jacqueline kennedy's jewelry, but this is

the kind of akonography -- iconography that is available the to us including these poignant photos with her two beguiling children. and across the bottom these are some fairly recent books about jack we lib kennedy. there's hardly a year that goes by there are not several new books out on mrs. kennedy, and there are two that came out about the times she spent after her marriage to aristotle onassis serving in new york as a book editor. and they are referencing jackie's books, the books that jacqueline kennedy edited so we get a sense of what she was like in that latter third of her life as she was a senior editor in new york city. all right? now, let's talk about why she, again, has such an immarket on -- impact on our imagination. we're celebrating 50 years of camelot starting this past

january, the 50th anniversary of that cold, snowy day when president kennedy was inaugurated the 35th president of the unite. and i'd like you to take a look at this definition. this is actually a political science definition of political symbolism, and i think that, indeed, this photograph here is one of the symbols of mrs. kennedy. and you mentioned eleanor roosevelt, you mentioned mamie eisenhower. how about bess truman? let's stop and think about those three immediate predecessors. those ladies were all many their 60s. jackie kennedy was 31 when she came to the white house. there had not been young children in the white house since the teddy roosevelt era this early 1900s, and they weren't as young as young caroline who was only 3 when her parents entered the white house, and john jr. had just been born between the election and the inauguration. the only time that's ever happened in the history of the presidency and the first ladies.

so this picture is taken about 1962. can you even imagine mamie eisenhower or bess truman on a horse? is one of the reasons i can't imagine that is like my own grandmothers who were of that generation, i never saw my grandmothers wear trousers. they always wore tresses. so even just to see a first lady in riding clothes and to be as athletic -- and she was an excellent rider and e questions try yen -- to be up on horseback was certainly different. this horse, by the way, was given to her by the president of pakistan when she made a trip there in 962. she -- 1962. she made a semiofficial trip some of you might recall to pakistan and india in 962, and she was a huge hit there. she loved this horse, and many of the paragraphs you see of her during her time in the white house and out on her farm shah he rented and then built a

farmhouse right at the end of the presidency in northern virginia. so oftentimes when you see her riding, she's riding this horse, the pack tanny president's gift to her. he was very grateful to her. she had thrown for him an amazing state dinner in the springtime and early 134er of 1962 at mount vernon. and, in fact, she had everyone meet and get, catch a boat to go down the potomac river, take an evening cruise, arrive at mount vernon, and then she had beautiful tents and marquees set up at mount vernon and had a beautiful outdoor, lovely dinner with music for the president of pakistan and all those invited to the state dinner. it still sets the upper bar for amazing state dinners that jacqueline kennedy had. but this concept of political symbolism i just want to say one thing about. one is that note how it says it taps into emotional and moral and psychological feelings. if jacqueline kennedy is still

in our consciousness, that's why, because she tapped into those elements of our emotion. but when people say, oh, but all that glitters is not gold, you know, camelot, there were some perhaps things that were not so good about camelot. well, note that's the very definition of a political symbol. it may not all be true, but it taps ideas that people want to believe in as true. and certainly many americans wanted to believe the legend and even the mythology of camelot. what were the other symbols that jacqueline kennedy is now famous for, and how can did they have an impact on her husband's presidency? this photo comes from the summer of 1962. mrs. kennedy is with her husband in mexico on a state visit. notice who's in the front here, all right? here's president kennedy standing to the back. president kennedy was known not to have a facility or a gift for foreign languages. some might say that his boston accent made his english a

foreign accent to some, to those of us in the kentucky, for example. took us a while to get used to that. i happened to be taught by dominican nuns who were from boston, so i was able to tap into that. but look at how mrs. ken key is dressed. some of you said that some of the previous first ladies to her -- eleanor roosevelt, maybe even mamie eisenhower, bess truman, i would describe them as rather matronly with old-fashioned suits and dresses, old-fashioned hats. look at mrs. kennedy. it was not common for women to wear sleeveless attire. and now we take that for granted and mrs. obama has brought the sleeveless dress back into vogue. also note the color, a very vibrant, bright pink rather than a dark, somber suit or a dark, somber dress and full sleeves or a little dowdy hat.

i say she could wear this hat to the kentucky derby and be right in style. this gives her husband another boost of symbolism, of youth and fashion. now, we also know that one of the other elements that she's quite famous for and remembered for is redecorating and restoring the white house. when i was doing my research for this book, i called the curator of the white house. this would have been in the late 1990s, and told her i was writing a book at jacqueline kennedy, and i was particularly interested in mrs. kennedy's restoration of the white house. the curator said to me do you know that restoring the white house is so associated with the name and the memory of mrs. kennedy that americans think that no one has ever touched the white house since mrs. kennedy left in 1963. and yet we know that everyone who moves into a new apartment or condo or house does some redecorating. so most first ladies have done some redecorating. she, though, remember, undertook this project to restore

completely the white house, take it from what she called a rather shabby 1950s, knotty-pine faux colonial look to a proper or, appropriate look for the age in which it was built and initially lived in. so she also established commissions and committees about the arts, about antiques, about paintings in the white house. and she made sure that everything that was there, as best she and these experts could determine, that these were all authentic. paintings, sculptures, upholstery and antiques. this is a sad day, i have to say, in mrs. kennedy's life. the reason that i show this is that was the first room that she completed in her restoration, but this was the day of her husband's funeral. and she insisted that she meet those who were coming from afar. those who were diplomats, the diplomatic corps from abroad. and so she stood with her

brother-in-law, senator edward kennedy, to her right and insisted on greeting everyone who had come to pay their respects to her husband. on a more glittery note, again, we remember her for her state entertaining. in the short amount of time that she was in the white house, and it was only a little over a thousand days, she and her husband threw 16 state dinners. in the first term, full four years of the w. bush term, they held, i believe, it was two. now, mind you, 9/11 happened during that time, there were security issues, but the bushes, the second bushes from texas were just not as interested in that. they weren't as interested in state entertainment. they weren't as interested in the bringing people from abroad and entertaining them at the white house. the kennedys loved that lifestyle. they both came, you know, from the northeast, they both had ties to new york city. president kennedy had ties to hollywood going back to his father's day there as a hollywood mogul in the 1920s.

so they loved that glimmer and that panache of entertainment. but they also, particularly mrs. kennedy, loved the arts. so she would use each and every one of these state entertainment occasions to bring artists to the white house. so she would bring playrights and singers, opera singers, she would bring orchestras, she would have plays that would be done at the white house. this also, then, reminded her that there was no proper national stage for the arts in washington d.c. and you know, eventually, what that leads to. this particular photograph, and you might be able to see just behind -- hold up here and go back. just behind her -- go forward -- you'll see the mona lisa, okay? the enigmatic mona lisa. i like to think that's a metaphor for mrs. kennedy. she has that mysterious smile. mrs. kennedy is a bit mysterious

to us even today because she maintained such a tight hold on her privacy. hook at other first ladies since. almost all of them have written memoirs. mrs. kennedy never wrote a memoir. think of hillary clinton's in which she tells of finding out about her husband's infidelities, and in a famous passage, she says, "i wanted to ring bill's neck." well, maybe mrs. kennedy wanted to say the same thing, but if she did, she never told about. she never went on oprah about it. she kept these things in her heart. and it adds to that mystique. it was perfect for her to facilitate the borrowing of the painting, if mona lisa, from france. we need france as an ally. france and president de gaulle could be prickly, and it could be a hitting difficult to deal with him at times. but note how mrs. kennedy is standing here next to andre mall

row. this is how mrs. kennedy approached men of power. she would tuck her shoulder up understood neither theirs, and she would use that very whisper ri voice, and she would whisper to them. and these men would just unload their hearts upon her, and they would hell her all of the things that they wanted her to know. whether these be matters of state or personal issues. andre was the min structure of culture in -- the minister of culture in france, and he adored her and she adored him. she is standing next to him, not her husband, and that was part of her power as well not just during the cold war, but just throughout husband's presidency. now, wal give her credit for saving lafayette square. imagine standing in this day and age in front of the white house with your pack to the north portico facing out towards lafayette park.

what if we didn't have the beautiful town oklahomas that are there -- townhomes that are there now, including dolly madison's home after her husband's presidency and into her retirement? imagine if we had high-rise, concrete federal office buildings. this is the plan that had been put into motion in the 1950s because the federal government continued to proliferate. and so president eisenhower and president kennedy had signed off on the plan to raze, to demolish all of the townhomes in lafayette square and use that prime real estate to put up high-rise office blocks for the federal bureaucracy. mrs. kennedy got wind of this, and she went to her husband and said, please, don't do that. look at these. and here she is with the architect. look at these beautiful townhomes. they can be restored. she then called on john carl

warn key, a west coast architect whose particular interest was how to preserve history while adding modern architecture to it. so he suggested putting in low-rise office buildings and making them of red brick, not bright, gaudy concrete. but beautiful red, colonial-looking brick or at least federal era brick that would then go with the beautiful brick sidewalks and pavements throughout lafayette square. so the next time you're down in lafayette square or you go by, think of mrs. kennedy and how she saved that. and in the process kicked off a movement of historic preservation in the united states. now, she one time said i sometimes worry the bomb hit and obliterate us all here in washington, but it didn't, and she saved this beautiful spot. for us. now, that's just in the unite. we haven't -- in the united states. we haven't talked about what she did when she went abroad. we only mentioned her

semiofficial trip by herself -- actually she took her sister when she went in '62 to india and pakistan. first of all, even in this day and age just imagine what it took for her to pull off that trip. so she did that with great aplomb. her first trip abroad as first lady with her husband in official state visit was to paris. and it was at that time that president kennedy famously said, let me introduce myself, i am the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris, and i have enjoyed it. in other words, he again was a bit in the background because she was so beautiful, and she spoke perfect french. she had spent her junior year abroad in paris. so she spoke fluent french, and here de gaulle doesn't look prickly to me, he looks charmed. he looks happy. and she's wearing ay venn chi gown. she typically would try to wear

american clothes, and oleg ca seenny was her primary stylist here. in the bodice of this gown you might even be able to see, she had embroidered flowers, beautiful silk embroidered flowers. this is what she wore to the state dinner at versailles. the second leg of that journey was even more important in terms of cold war politic. it was important enough to keep de gaulle on our side, but she also met in vienna when her husband went to the summit with cruise khrushchev. now, president kennedy went into that summit in 1961, he thought, i'm young, i'm bright, i'm dynamic, i'm charismatic, that's how i won the presidency. finish i will be able to charm this communist russian peasant with no problem.

one problem. he didn't. and khrushchev, as the stories go, savaged the president to the point where the president came out of the first summit meeting ashen-faced. khrushchev took the measure of the man. mrs. kennedy, on the other hand, is meeting at the same time with mrs. khrushchev, and they're getting along famously. now, i'm not here to argue that that saves the free world or that that saves us from the bomb being dropped. but if you have some personal diplomacy going on behind the scenes, that certainly helps. here's another point i wish to raise with you. if you can see, mrs. kennedy is wearing a rather sedate, subdued dark suit but a lovely little pillbox hat that she became famous for. look at mrs. khrushchev, all right? or picture this. you're a third world country, you hadn't yet align with the the soviets or the united

states. and you have to decide, am i going to cast my lot with the united states or the soviet union based on how their first ladies look, which one do you pick? i think symbolically there's something to it. the kennedyss looked alive and vibrant and stylish. the soviets did not. next, mrs. kennedy meets with khrushchev himself. now, again, this is not an official summit meeting where diplomacy is occurring, but she meets him at the state dinner at the palace in vienna. and look at the facial expressions on chairman khrushchev's face. again, president kennedy's in the background. here's mrs. kennedy in this lovely perioded gown, and apparently she said this to chairman khrushchev when he began to try to dazzle her with statistics about how many missiles they had and how many cannons they were producing and how many tractors. she supposedly in her breathy voice said, oh, mr. chairman,

don't bore me with statistics. and he broke into this wide smile. as "the washington post" put it the next day, he looked like a russian schoolboy at the start of spring when the ice is melting on the volga. [laughter] she just melted him with her charm. other images, of course, were of her life as a mother. think how perfect this was at the height of the baby boom. remember, the baby boom goes from babies born from 1946 to 1964. caroline was born in 1957, john jr. in 1960. mrs. kennedy is part and parcel of the baby boom. this, i am convinced, is why my mother who was having her own baby boom in our family, packed my two older brothers and me in october of 1960, drove us to downtown louisville, kentucky, to see senator john phenomenal kennedy come through and give a campaign speech.

my mother looed history, and she loved politics on a grand scale. she did like the drive downtown, and she didn't like crowds. and yet this family, senator kennedy, mrs. kennedy, caroline at that time so drew my mother -- a catholic housewife from louisville, kentucky -- to go see her new political hero. and she would say to me forever more, don't you remember? we got there early, and we were right in front of the podium, and your brother shook hands with soon to be president kennedy, and i'd say, mother, i'm trying so hard to remember, but i was 4. i remembered the balloons, the confetti, i remember that one of her earrings dropped off and got stuck in a pile of confetti, and we found it on the way out. someone had stepped on it, but i think she was able to bend it back. and i would say to her, mother, you turned me into a political scientist at the age of 4. but i think this is why women in

particular, why jacqueline kennedy resonated with them. this photograph is taken from august of 1963. it is another sad time for the family. mrs. kennedy had just lost her son patrick who had been born prematurely a week before and had died of a lung ailment. she and the president were shattered as was caroline who was 6 at the time, and she was old enough to understand she wasn't going to have a baby brother or sister to welcome. young john was a little bit too young to understand. but what president kennedy did this weekend, again, the week after patrick died, was come back from washington and bring all the family dogs as well as new puppies just to try to lighten up the spirit of the time. and so here they are sitting out on their porch, on their patio at high yang in addition port. now, obviously, the media played a role in all of this. it wasn't just mrs. kennedy putting out these symbols and images and no one paying

attention. think of this. in 1952 when president eisenhower was elected president, 20% of american households had televisions. by 19 60, 80% of american households have television. now, mind you, they were all black and white. remember those days? i would tell this to my students, and we only had two channels. my students couldn't comprehend such a thing. we only had two channels. that's true. but the kennedyss were on television a lot. and mrs. kennedy and president kennedy were beautiful on television. they were even more beautiful in the glossy "life" magazine covers. think about those. practically every week one or more of the kennedys -- and this is just president and mrs. kennedy. think of all the brothers and the sisters and the nieces and the nephews, they were always being portrayed in one way or the other. so as a typical icon, pop culture icons they both reflect the time in which they live, and they become a lens by which we

view that time in which they lived. and since television was coming on the scene, this middle photo is a still from the famous tour that mrs. kennedy gave with charles callingwood of cbs on valentine's day, 1962. remember, she took him through the white house, showed him all the rooms that she had redecorated without a script. she just went think. she wasn't read prg cue card or anything. she had all of this in her brain. she had remembered all of the antiques, all of the portraits, all of the painters, all of the upholstery, all of the furniture. every story she could tell. she won an emmy award for that show. and that show was recorded and sent around the world. it even to the extent we could get it behind the iron curtain, we did. and president kennedy made a cameo appearance in the last five minutes. he came in to talk to charles and jackie. and can he said this white house is a symbol.

it's a symbol of american history. and he said, when we first became a country 200 year ago, there was a czar in russia, there was an emperor in peking, and he said look how much we have grown beyond that. in other words, if you're the third world and you're still wondering which way to go, pick us. we have great history. we have great art. we have great symbolism, and we have a great fist lady. sadly, we know how the story ends. on november the 22nd, 1963. interestingly enough, mrs. kennedy volunteered to go with her husband to texas. it was a fundraiser trip as well as a trip to try to bring together the two warring factions of the texas democratic party. mrs. kennedy had not gone out on a domestic trip with her husband for his entire presidency. she, of course, had gone abroad with him, but she had not gone on a domestic trip. she e didn't particularly like the rough and up tumble of

campaigning, so she rarely volunteered to go on these trips. this is just those three months after she had lost her baby. she and the president, according to all accounts, had grown closer because of that shared experience. mrs. kennedy, though, was so distraught and depressed in the fall of 1963 the president urged her to go abroad. she went on a greek cruise with her sister's boyfriend, aristotle o onassis, and she cae back much more refreshed, much happier. and volunteered to go to dallas with her husband. and she said many years later, for all of the horror that she experienced, what a blessing that she could be there when the end came. and so just an hour after this, we know how this story ends. in those six horrifying seconds in which the shots rang out in the motorcade in dallas, mrs. kennedy lost her husband, her home and her job.

imagine what that must have been like for her. and yet she was willing at the request of the new president, lyndon johnson, to come out into the cabin and stand next to him when he took the oath of office from judge sara t. hughes. and, again, those of you who remember that day, i know, have this image burned in your brains. mrs. kennedy refused to change clothes. she was wearing her famous raspberry chanel suit. she had started out the day with the matching pillbox hat. that had come off in the chaos, but she refused to take off her blood-stained suit because she kept saying, i want them to see what they did to my husband. and even though i was just 7 at the time, i can remember watching that black and white television in our living room with my family, and we can gasp when she came off the plane and was still wearing that suit. but she refused to take it off.

she then became, though, the mourner in chief for the nation. she had a few moments of shock, again, given the horror she had witnessed. but very quickly she got her wits about her. she asked her husband's family, sergeant shriver, and some cabinet members to look at starting to plan the funeral right away. and she asked it to be based on abraham lincoln's funeral. here she is coming down the steps of the capitol with caroline on one hand and john on the other. the president's brother, bobby, behind her, his sister pat to bobby's left and peter lawford behind the group there. and i can only find in the videos one moment in public where she began to cry softly. and it was when they arrived at the capitol with the caseson bearing her husband's casket, and the band struck up "hail to the chief." and she just dropped her head to

her chest, and she began to cry a bit softly. now, this is the next step that she takes in the image-making process. one week after the assassination she is in high yang in addition port with her family for thanksgiving. she calls journalist teddy white who had written that famous book, "the making of the president, 960," and she asks him to come from new york where he lived to write a story about her husband to put into "life" magazine for that week. and mr. white had to say we are ready to go to press with that. and she said, i don't care. stop the presses, don't print it, i need to tell you this story. a nor'easter was developing. teddy white's mother was suffering a heart attack as he left, but he got a chauffer, and he was driven from new york city to cape cod through a driving nor'easter. and he arrives on the scene late in the afternoon and evening,

and mrs. kennedy begins to tell him the story of what she witnessed in dallas a week before. and she spared no details. she had to get this off her chest. and then she said to him, i want my husband to be remembered as follows: he loved the musical "camelot" which was a very popular stage play in new york at that time. she said he loved the soundtrack, and at night his back would be hurting, it would be cold, but we'd go out, and we'd put on the hi-fi -- not a stereo -- the cast album. and she said, i know this sounds trivial, but i can't get this out of my mind. this refrain keeps going over and over in my head. don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment known as camelot. and so she's the one who picks that metaphor, who picks that

word, that image to describe her husband's indeed brief presidency, and i would maintain shining and resplendent. and so just to remind us, i have the cast here. richard burton, robert goulet and julie andrews from the broadway show. her very final symbol of that weekend, those three days of the funeral in washington, d.c. in november of 1963 was to ask that at arlington on the hillside just down from the mansion where her husband was buried that there be an eternal flame. she had that idea from the tomb of the unknown soldier in paris where she had studied as a college student, and she thought that would be such an appropriate metaphor going back to the inaugural address where he says the torch has been passed to a new generation. and so you might remember at the funeral she, bobby and teddy all lit this eternal flame. she also then hired john carl

warneke again, her architect friend, to put together and design this very grave site. and i'm sure most of you have been out to arlington cemetery to see it. and she also asked, and i think this is tell, that she be buried there when she died in 1994 of lymphoma. she at no time ask to be buried in the greece. she didn't ask to be buried in the greece with aristotle onassis, her second husband. she asked to be buried with her husband and the two children they lost. so to help you put this into perspective in terms of where does jacqueline kennedy fall when it comes to literature about first ladies, you may have been here for the first two talks about first ladies. you may come next week for eleanor roosevelt. this is what the scholars think about first ladies in the modern era. and by the way, those of us who

study first ladies, take eleanor roosevelt and put her in a category unto herself. she is as henry abraham would say suis generous. she's unto herself. there's no one like her before or after. but for those ladies who come after, i maintain that jacqueline kennedy is a bridge first lady because she bridges the gap between the very traditional ladies of bess truman and of mamie eisenhower and then the most modern first ladies really starting with lady bird johnson. all of them have had public policy with the possible exception of pat nixon, a pet public policy that they have worked on in their husband's administration. if i did a game right now that said name that policy, for every first lady i'm sure one or more of you could say, oh, i know exactly what that first lady is famous for. now i ask you though, what about laura bush and currently michelle obama? would you put them in the

category of the supportive spouses/model wives, or would you put them in the second category of more of a presidential partner or spouse to their husbands? and i would say think about this as a semifinal point, and that is that i think laura bush had to be the un-hillary. hillary, in the minds of the american people, seemed to go too far on her health care initiative so that people began to say, wait a minute, she's not elected, she's not accountable. if we don't like what she's doing, we have no way of reaching her. and remember then hillary dialed back a notch and became more of the traditional first lady by being in fair of women's issues like child advocacy. so i think that suited laura bush's personality, and it also suited the times in the terms of what we wanted from a first lady. and i think michelle obama, she's only been there two years, she's still feeling her way. right now she's acting more the traditional first lady. she has a traditional policy,

it's about indict and exercise and women and children's issues. here's my last question for you. what about future first ladies? what model will they use, and what about when we inevitably have the first first gentleman? and don had asked me to just say a word about my next project. i am writing about another kennedy woman, the president's mother, rose kennedy. and i believe she started the entire process of kennedy imagery by creating images herself of her children, her husband, her family and her son as president. and so i hope you will look for this in the next couple of years. rose, mother of the kennedy image. there are books available in the back about all of these first ladies about whom you've heard here at the society. i'd be happy to sign mine for you. and i would just like to say we have about ten minutes or so if you have questions. please, please, feel free to

ask. finish who would like to throw out the first question? yes. >> could you touch upon how she handled when all this was going on as far as scandals with her husband? >> yes. the question is did i touch upon the so-called scandals of improprieties, particularly of her husband, is that touched upon in my book? >> of of course, this is a bookf facts, so one cannot ignore that. in fact, what i think she was trying to do with teddy white that week after the assassination was get out in front of those stories. now, there is a whole book called "the dark side of camelot "written by investigative reporter seymour hirsh which came out in the late '90s. it's about this thick, and if one wants chapter and verse of the infidelities of the president on the personal side

as well as mistakes that hirsh believes that he made particularly in foreign policy, be my guest. knock yourself out, read it from cover to cover, and you will see that side, the dark side of camelot. i don't know if mrs. kennedy was taking into mind a week after the assassination how history would view her husband's policies, foreign or domestic. but most people think she knew at least to some extent of his infidelities, and there's indication that she did. so i think she was trying to get out ahead of that by creating this camelot mythology and legend, if you will. so what i do since i'm focusing more on the images that she's creating, i make the case that, again, symbols are not always true. they tap into ideas people want to believe in as true. and people wanted to believe in camelot. they wanted to believe in this shining, golden age that was the kennedy administration. and that she, therefore,

succeeded in getting out in front of both stories that would come out about her husband's personal life as well as revisionist history that would come out and continue to come out. but i would also say that in this 50th year that we are commemorating the kennedy administration and calling it camelot, so we still use that metaphor that she created, i hear, of course, people give both sides of the administration, the good things that they did and the mistakes that they made, and about president kennedy's own personal foibles. but i think by and large people still have an interest in his presidency and in her. and you all are testament to that to come out today. yes. >> what do you know or think about the movie that is due out this week called "the kennedys "? it was thrown out by the history channel because the kennedys objected to it, butst it's still going to be -- >> yes. thank you for bringing that up. there is a movie that will be out coming week, i believe it

starts about the third or so of april. it will not be on the history channel because the history channel is committed to telling the truth and to being as factual as possible. and there were some questions about the valid thety of some of the -- the validity of some of the portrayals of the kennedys and these very foibles, peccadilloes, especially those, the personal side. because the dark side of camelot, even if only half of it's true, is pretty bad. one must ask could all of these negative things be true? and what happened with the movie was ted sorenson, president kennedy's famous speech writer -- with whom i met, i should say, to do an interview about mrs. rose kennedy. i met with him back in june and, sadly, he passed away this past october -- ted sorenson when i said -- he wanted to know what the title of my book was and i said, rose, -- he said i don't

like that image because he was trying to portray the substance of the kennedy administration both when he worked for senator kennedy, president kennedy and all the years after. he never wanted people to think there was no substance in the style of the image, so i understood why he took issue with that. but he also was leading the charge against this upcoming movie because he believed it was filled with inaccuracies. so i guess it's like anything that's in the media whether it's a television show, a movie made for television, books be they of scholarship or journalistic quality, it's all up to us to decide based on our own reading and understanding of the record how much is true as being portrayed. but what we should say is this is not a golden portrayal of the kennedy administration. in order, it contains negatives as well as some of the positives. >> [inaudible] >> well, i'm -- if i can find it on my new digital service from

comcast. [laughter] i was just saying, i came up with my friends, and i said, oh, you know, that movie's coming up, and be i said i'm pretty sure i saw the channel when i first got my upgraded package, but it seems to have disappeared. i'll probably be on the phone if nothing else to say i'm a scholar of the kennedys, so i will watch it in case i get questions like this where people will say have you viewed it and what did you think? i'm sensing that i'll probably say the same thing about it as i say about the dark side of camelot. even if half the things are true, that's pretty bad, but it's all up up to us how we want to bring the balance of the administration, the policy and the personal side. if we disqualify every president who had an extramarital affair, we're going to be down to a low number of men, anyway, who qualify for the white house. i think there was another question, was there, back here? yes.

>> i just wantedded to throw -- wanted to throw in a few more words about eleanor roosevelt. >> i will say, i know you'll have that chance next week. if you want to compare her to mrs. kennedy, let's do. >> no, i just commented on your statement about children in the white house. for the first two years of the roosevelt administration, she had two grandchildren in the white house. >> she had many grandchildren, and there are wonderful photos of her and fdr in the white house surrounded by i would say at least a dozen of them, and i should also say to you that i had the pleasure this past december of dining in bistro here in new york, and i said do you see that gentleman who just came in? i said, you know, that looks like one of franklin roosevelt's grandchildren, and my friend said how would you know what his

grandchildren looked like? and i said i saw him on c-span two years ago. my colleague was too embarrassed to go up to this man. i, of course, go up to this man who's having dinner, turns out with his daughter, and i say are you franklin roosevelt's grandson? and he said, yes, i am. and he said, how did you know me? i said, i saw you on c-span two years ago. he was on the democratic committee that was trying to determine whether mrs. clinton or president obama would get which of the delegates as they got towards and closer to the democratic convention. so they're around, and we can still see them today. but, indeed, franklin roosevelt had a number of young grandchildren in the white house which is wonderful, and i'm sure the american people loved seeing it. it's not quite the same as the first couple having young children. there's just something that is beguiling about that, especially be there are two young, beguiling children as there are now in the white house and as there were in the kennedy years.

and you also may have heard the stories that because mrs. kennedy was so concerned about privacy, her own and her children's, that she would draw lines about when the children and how the children could be photographed. but famously, when she would leave the white house as she often did alone to go out to northern virginia or to go abroad without the president or without her children sometimes, president kennedy would go to pierre salinger and say, pierre, it's time to get pictures of the children. so some of those most wonderfully-compelling photographs that we have of president kennedy in the oval office, you know, clapping and the children dancing around him on the carpet, those were often taken when mrs. kennedy was away. i think we have time for one more question. yes, sir. >> can you talk a little bit about her understanding of her imimagine and how -- imimagine and how that would play out during the onassis \? >> absolutely. a little bit about how mrs. kennedy's image played out once she remarried and she

remarried, of course, aristotle onassis in the fall of 1968. remember the timing of that for her and for our country. her brother-in-law bobby to whom she had grown so close in those intervening five years from when her own husband died, and welcome bobby who had become a surrogate father to caroline and john was himself struck down by an an assassin in 1968. if they're killing kennedys, my children might be next, mrs. kennedy supposed commented. so she was obviously looking for safety and security which aristotle onassis represented by having his own island off the coast of greece to which he could take her and the children, not to mention his own yacht, and not to mention millions and millions of dollars. because even though we think of the kennedys as being wealthy and mrs. kennedy had been left fairly well off by her husband's

will, it was not necessarily enough to support her in the way she had grown accustomed. so she was, obviously, looking for some financial security too. but i think what you're probably driving at is that she did take a hit. her image took a hit for two reasons. one is that aristotle o onassis was viewed as a rather unscrupulous businessman. and number two, he didn't look like president kennedy. so if you, if you put yourself out as the queen of camelot and then you marry a troll -- [laughter] i'm just saying, people take that personally. and i can remember my mother and others saying how could she after she was married to that handsome president kennedy, how could she marry aristotle onassis? but in his defense i should say that i'd say it was about ten years ago, maybe a little less, when i was first writing this book, mrs. kennedy's sister appeared on larry king, that

very scholarly show. and he asked her, he said what was it that your sister saw in aristotle onassis? and lee razzwell said, well, i had been interested in mr. onassis, and she said you just have to understand he was so charismatic, and she said the way he would move through a room or out in public. and she said he moved like a potentate. so there was something compelling about him in addition to money, apparently, that both the sisters were drawn to. but you are absolutely right to infer that mrs. kennedy's image did take a hit. she dropped in some of the polls where people are asked who is your most admired american woman. she tended to drop in those year, but e she went back up after he died and after she continued to live this lifestyle in new york of a rather quiet life working as a book editor but also working for hi to havic reservation. for example, for grand central

station. she worked for that. and so she actually went up in the polls towards the time shah she died in 1994. she was well up into that top ten category of most-admired women. so her image came back, if you will, in her final years. so, don, do we have time for one more? >> [inaudible] >> we can take one more then. >> should we finish with aristotle? [laughter] >> i did not get a chance to ask lee razzwell, and i'm not sure that she commented on that on the larry king show when i saw her there. my sense was perhaps things were winding down with that romance and that mrs. kennedy took over where that had wound down. but i have to say i don't know the exact answer to your question. but it's an intriguing one, to be sure. so with that, thank you all so much for your attention today and for your wonderful questions. [applause]w3 >> this book is part of the

university press of kansas' modern first lady series. for more information visit kansaspress.ku.edu. >> you have this enormous following, and you're a kind of cult figure. i was trying to figure out is there any recent historical figure that you think you are analogous to? i mean, feel free to -- [laughter] throw off the restraints of modesty. >> i want to make it clear, though, that 10,000 people are coming together because they want to, because they're drawn to the same vision as each other, and they want to spend a day thinking about and reflecting on the incredible progress we've made in the last 20 years against what is a true crisis in our country, this issue of educational inequity and what more each of us needs to do, individually and collectively, to solve the problem. so it's not really -- >> but you will be treated as a

kind of rock star. [laughter] >> you know what? the sad reality is, i mean, maybe we would all wish, but, you know, there'll be my critics and my friends, and it'll be fun, but, you know, it's not all a love fest. >> i, i think the closest analogy i could come up with was the marine corps. tough to get in, and then they send you to really nasty places. [laughter] right? and i was wondering, you know, how in the movies there's always that moment in that kind of movie where the one tough guy meets the other tough guy, and they're about to get in a fight, and the one says, wait, were you in nam? wait, were you in the marine corps? yeah, i was in 29th infantry, semperfy. and i wonder if is there two moments where teach for america alums get together, they say, cowt bronx.

[laughter] they show each other their teach for america tattoos. i mean, i'm joking, but there is a kind of -- you are creating a kind of movement. i mean, the marine corps alumni represents a kind of movement representing a certain attitude towards the world, you know? >> this is exactly the idea. i mean, this is the big idea, you know? and teach for america really isn't about -- we are about, teachers are critical, but teach for america's about building a movement among our country's future leaders to say we've got to change the way our education system is fundamentally. and i think in your article in the new yorker about the formation of movements just captured the whole theory of change of teach for america. i mean, this is about the foundation aleck appearance of teaching successfully in ways that, you know, i think we're creating a corps of people who

are absolutely determined to expand the opportunities facing kids in the most absolutely, you know, economically-disadvantaged communities, you know, who are pouring themselves into their work and trying to put their kids on a difference trajectory and, you know, having varying levels of success and taking from that experience incredible lessons. you know, they realize through their firsthand experience the challenges their kids face, the potential they have. they realize that it's, ultimately, possible to solve the problem, and that experience is not only important for their kids, but t completely transformational for them. and i think, of course, they're all going through this together, and i think leave with a common set of convictions and insights and just a common level of commitment to, ultimately, go out and affect the fundamental changes we need to see to really solve the problem. >> you've got how many alumni now? >> we've got 20,000 alums. >> so you consider your alumni

to be as important as your active teachers if you're thinking of it in movement terms. >> yep. >> how many alumni do you need before you think you have a kind of critical mass? >> um, well, you know, i guess you never know, you know, what will lead this to the tipping point. [laughter] >> you just bought yourself a good five more nice softball questions. [laughter] >> i think, i don't know, you know? this is growing exponentially at this point, you know? a mere, you know, five year ago we had 8800 alums, and today we have 20,000. and if we can continue the growth trajectory that we're on, we'll have more than 40,000 by a mere five years from now, and i guess i look at what's happening in some communityies where we've been placing people for, in some cases, people for 20 years; new orleans, washington, d.c., oakland, california, in houston, texas, and in