The Cultural Politics of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis remained one of the most famous women in the world well beyond her time as First Lady of the United States. Yet historians have failed to integrate her fully into existing historiography of the postwar period. My current project places JKO alongside the emergence of Second Wave feminism and the Women’s Liberation Movement and considers her importance as a symbol of what lived feminism might yield. While never identifying as a feminist herself, JKO embraced the autonomy and agency feminism endeavored to bring to American women more broadly. Perhaps the most lasting idea of the Second Wave – the idea a woman should have a choice about her life’s direction – was a hallmark of JKO’s public life, especially as she entered middle age (from her marriage to Aristotle Onassis to her return to the working world to her decision to die a private, dignified death). Given that JKO’s public life overlapped directly with the increasingly public push for a feminist politics and a feminist consciousness, study of this famous woman demands consideration of her celebrity in conversations with a movement that irrevocably changed American women’s lives. This paper explores JKO’s importance in publicizing what were considered radical ideas and making them familiar to a mainstream American public. Through exploration of media coverage of and popular response to JKO, this paper will address major project themes as well as the challenges of considering the political implications of a person many assume to have been an apolitical figure.