Caroline Kennedy

This article is about the daughter of U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. For the late wife of President Kennedy's son, see Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy
File:CarolineKennedy.jpg
Born	(1957-11-27) November 27, 1957 New York, New York, U.S.
Education	Harvard University Columbia Law School
Occupation(s)	author, philanthropist
Spouse	Edwin Arthur Schlossberg
Children	Rose, Tatiana, John
Parent(s)	John F. Kennedy, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy (born November 27, 1957) is an American author and attorney. She is the daughter and only surviving child of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his wife, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. An older sister, Arabella, died shortly after her birth in 1956. Brother John F. Kennedy, Jr. died in a plane crash in 1999. Another brother, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy died two days after his birth in 1963.

Early life

Kennedy was born in New York, New York and lived in the Washington, DC neighborhod of Georgetown until just after her third birthday, when her family moved to the White House. After the assassination of her father in November 1963, she moved with her mother and brother in mid 1964 to New York City, in the penthouse apartment at 1040 Fifth Avenue, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.

In 1967, she christened the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy, which was in active service until March 23, 2007.

A photo of a young Caroline with her pony in a news article inspired singer-songwriter Neil Diamond to write his hit song "Sweet Caroline", a fact he revealed only when performing it for her 50th birthday in November 2007.

Education

She graduated from Radcliffe College/Harvard University and Columbia Law School, after completing her education at The Brearley School and Convent of the Sacred Heart, and Concord Academy in Massachusetts.

Marriage

After interning with her uncle U.S. Senator Edward Kennedy, and at The New York Daily News, Caroline Kennedy began work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1980, where she met her husband, the exhibit designer Edwin Schlossberg.

Caroline and Edwin were married on July 19, 1986 at Our Lady of Victory Church in Centerville, Massachusetts. Caroline's maid of honor was her cousin Maria Shriver.

Children

They have two daughters and one son:

• Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, born on June 25, 1988 in New York City, New York (named after Caroline's grandmother Rose Kennedy)
• Tatiana Celia Kennedy Schlossberg, born on May 5, 1990 in New York City, New York (named after Edwin's former colleague, the lithographer Tatiana Grossman, and after Edwin's grandmother)
• John Bouvier Kennedy Schlossberg, born on January 19, 1993 in New York City, New York (named after Caroline's parents)

Kennedy lives in New York City, New York with her husband and family. Her husband is president of Edwin Schlossberg Inc., a multi-disciplinary design company that specializes in interactive exhibit design and museum master-planning.

Death of her mother

Upon her mother Jacqueline's death in 1994, Ms. Kennedy was instrumental in planning a private funeral service, when there were plans in progress for a more public event. The funeral was instead an invitation-only event, attended by mostly family and close friends.

Work

Kennedy is an attorney, editor, and writer. She is one of the founders of the Profiles in Courage Award, given annually to a person who exemplifies the type of courage examined in her father's Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same name. The award is generally given to elected officials who, acting in accord with their conscience, risk their careers by pursuing a larger vision of the national, state or local interest in opposition to popular opinion or powerful pressures from their constituents. In May 2002, she presented an unprecedented Profiles in Courage Award to representatives of the NYPD, the New York City Fire Department, and the military as representatives of all of the people who acted to save the lives of others during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

Kennedy is currently President of the Kennedy Library Foundation, a director of both the Commission on Presidential Debates and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Honorary Chairman of the American Ballet Theatre. She is also an adviser to the Harvard Institute of Politics, a living memorial to her father.

In addition, Kennedy has represented her family at the funeral services of former Presidents Ronald Reagan in 2004 and Gerald Ford in 2007, and at the funeral service of former First Lady Lady Bird Johnson in 2007.

Caroline Kennedy also represented her family at the dedication of the William J. Clinton Presidential Center and Park in Little Rock, Arkansas in November 2004.

Works published

Kennedy and Ellen Alderman have written two books together on civil liberties:

• In Our Defense: The Bill of Rights In Action (1990) and
• The Right to Privacy (1995)

On her own, she has edited these New York Times best-selling volumes:

• A Patriot’s Handbook
• The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis
• A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children
• Profiles in Courage for Our Time

She is also the author of "A Family Christmas" a collection of poems, prose and personal notes from her family history.

Endorsement in the 2008 presidential election

On Sunday, January 27, 2008, Kennedy announced in a New York Times op-ed piece entitled, "A President Like My Father", that she would endorse Barack Obama in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Her concluding lines were: "I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans." This was the first time Caroline had endorsed a Presidential candidate other than when she endorsed her uncle, Ted Kennedy, in 1980. The Associated Press reported that Ted Kennedy endorsed Obama on January 28, 2008 and that "Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy, the senator's son, completed the family tableau onstage with Obama" at a rally at American University.

In late 2007, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his sisters Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and Kerry Kennedy (children of the late Senator and United States Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy) endorsed Hillary Clinton.

In a January 29 2008 editorial they wrote, "By now you may have read or heard that our cousin, Caroline Kennedy, and our uncle, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, have come out in favor of Sen. Barack Obama. We, however, are supporting Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton because we believe that she is the strongest candidate for our party and our country."

Theodore Sorenson, wordsmith to the Kennedys, endorsed Obama in July 2007.

External links

• Caroline Kennedy at IMDb