Dimensions
140 x 210 x 25mm
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis has been one of America's most beloved icons, capturing the public's interest with her grace and style from her first steps into the spotlight during John F. Kennedy's political campaigns. But Jackie aspired to be so much more than a fashion plate. JACKIE AFTER O chronicles Jackie's life in 1975 -- one remarkable year for the former first lady -- as she shook the world's expectations and rediscovered her dreams.
While growing up in New York, Virginia, and Newport, Rhode Island, young Jackie Bouvier fell in love with the written word. Constantly reading, writing, drawing, and taking photographs, she was determined to become a journalist after her college graduation. Though most young women seeking employment at the Washington Times-Herald in the early 1950s were assigned to the society pages, Jackie's persistence led to her becoming the "Inquiring Photographer," posing questions to people on the street and taking photos of her interviewees to accompany their responses. But her engagement and marriage to John Kennedy, the future 35th President of the United States, in 1953 set the then twenty-four-year-old in a completely different direction.
So much has already been written about Jackie's life as a Kennedy. Following the assassination of her brother-in-law Robert in 1968, Jackie withdrew as best she could from the public eye. She married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis at the end of that year and sought safety and privacy for herself and her children, despite being a constant target of the paparazzi. But after six years of marriage, her children now teenagers, Jackie found herself again turning to the literature and arts she had longed to pursue as a young woman. It had been fifteen years since her last byline, a "campaign wife" column for the Democratic National Committee, and she was itching to write again. She called William Shawn, legendary editor of the New Yorker, and proposed her first and only piece for the magazine, a lengthy "Talk of the Town" item on the new International Center for Photography and its executive editor, Cornell Capa.
With the piece's publication in January 1975, Jackie Onassis began one of the most remarkable years of her life. Although 1975 brought the death of her second husband, it was also a time of renaissance for the former first lady. She set out to find more personally fulfilling work; not only beginning to write again but taking on an editorial position at Viking Press. When landmark status was overturned for New York's historic Grand Central Station, Jackie led the Committee to Save Grand Central Station, throwing herself into the spotlight on behalf of landmark conservation. It was a tumultuous yet prolific year for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Jackie After O recounts this beloved icon's steps toward fulfilling her dreams in middle age.
