Content area
Full Text
Jacqueline Kennedy, First Lady of the New Frontier. By Barbara A. Perry. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2004. 270 pp.
Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, even four decades after leaving the White House and one decade after her death, continues to engender such strong responses that the challenge of assessing her role in and impact upon the modern presidency seems overwhelming. Certainly the limited availability of this first lady's papers and records makes scholarly analysis extremely difficult. Acknowledging these circumstances, Barbara A. Perry focuses her study on the iconic aspects of Jacqueline Kennedy's tenure as first lady, seeking to understand how Kennedy utilized symbols and technology to establish herself, her husband, and her husband's administration in the American imagination and on the international stage. While Perry recounts the narrative of Kennedy's life, she centers her analysis on this first lady's priorities and skills in mass communication.
Perry lists five themes that distinguished Kennedy's performance as first lady: restoration of the White House, fashion,...