Dr. Karen M. Dunak on How Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Represented American Womanhood

Today on the show we’re talking about a woman you all have long known I admire — Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. I have read every book I can get my hands on about this former First Lady, American (and, really, global) icon, and one of the most famous women to ever live. We have even had many episodes of the show about her in the past. But today we’re talking about the new book Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life by Dr. Karen M. Dunak, which is out November 12, and instead of just looking at this remarkable woman’s life, we’re looking at this remarkable woman’s life through the lens of how she represented American womanhood more broadly. As Karen writes in the book, “Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was a person, but she also served as a symbol of broader cultural expectations.” And what Karen found through her research here was totally fascinating. Jackie's designer Oleg Cassini called her “a powerful symbol for the United States,” and she held power as a public figure, both domestically and internationally. It goes without saying that American womanhood changed dramatically from 1960 and John F. Kennedy’s election to the presidency and 1994 and Jackie’s far too soon death. Jackie’s life is examined through her time as a campaign wife to First Lady to widow to a wife again after remarrying Aristotle Onassis to becoming a career woman and an icon. As Karen writes in the book of Jackie, “She often followed a path of her own choosing, enduring the ebbs and flows of assessments about her much as she did the transition from campaign wife to first lady and then beyond. Response to her may have reflected broader ideas about American womanhood. But she was just being herself.” This book specifically zooms in on media coverage of Jackie and how that framed her narrative, and I gobbled it up. Here on the show today we have the pleasure of hosting Dr. Karen M. Dunak, professor and Arthur G. and Eloise Barnes Cole Chair of American History in the Department of History at Muskingum University. Prior to Our Jackie, Karen was the author of As Long as We Both Shall Love: The White Wedding in Postwar America, and she is a contributor to Of the People: A History of the United States. Her research interests include post-World War II U.S. history, American women’s history, gender and sexuality, and social movements, and celebrity and media in U.S. history, and her work has appeared in many academic journals. I can’t wait for you to hear what she has to say.

Our Jackie: Public Claims on a Private Life by Dr. Karen M. Dunak