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American businessman and politician (1888–1969)

Joseph P. Kennedy
Kennedy in 1938
44th United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom
In office
March 8, 1938 – October 22, 1940
PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded byRobert Worth Bingham
Succeeded byJohn Gilbert Winant
1st Chair of the United States Maritime Commission
In office
April 14, 1937 – February 19, 1938
PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byEmory S. Land
1st Chair of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission
In office
June 30, 1934 – September 23, 1935
PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded byPosition established
Succeeded byJames M. Landis
Personal details
BornJoseph Patrick Kennedy
(1888-09-06)September 6, 1888
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
DiedNovember 18, 1969(1969-11-18) (aged 81)
Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, U.S.
Resting placeHolyhood Cemetery
PartyDemocratic
Spouse
​
(m. 1914)​
Children
Parent
RelativesKennedy family
EducationHarvard University (AB)
Occupation
  • Businessman
  • investor
  • philanthropist
  • politician
Signature

Joseph Patrick Kennedy (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and politician. Known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children, he was the patriarch of the Kennedy family.

Kennedy was born into a political family in East Boston, Massachusetts. After making a large fortune as a stock and commodity market investor, he invested in real estate and a wide range of privately controlled businesses across the United States. During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard; through that position, he became acquainted with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In the 1920s, Kennedy made huge profits by reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios; several acquisitions were ultimately merged into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios. Kennedy increased his fortune with distribution rights for Scotch whisky. He owned the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart.

Kennedy was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic community. President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to be the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he led from 1934 to 1935. Kennedy later directed the United States Maritime Commission. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to late 1940. With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Kennedy was pessimistic about Britain's ability to survive attacks from Germany. During the Battle of Britain in November 1940, Kennedy publicly suggested, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]." After a controversy regarding this statement, Kennedy resigned his position.

Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald and had nine children. During his later life, he was heavily involved in the political careers of his sons. Three of Kennedy's sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and as the 35th president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy served as the U.S. attorney general and as a U.S. senator from New York, and Ted Kennedy was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was also the father of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.

Early life and education

[edit]
Waist high portrait of man in his teens wearing a suit, leaning to his left so his right shoulder is cut off
Kennedy's yearbook photo from Boston Latin School

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born on September 6, 1888, at 151 Meridian Street in East Boston, Massachusetts.[1][2] Kennedy was the elder son of Mary Augusta (née Hickey) Kennedy and businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P.J." Kennedy.[1] Kennedy attended Boston Latin School, where he excelled at baseball and was elected class president[3] before graduating in 1908.[1]

Kennedy then attended Harvard College, where he gained admittance to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club but was not invited to join the Porcellian Club.[3] Kennedy graduated in 1912[4] with a bachelor's degree in economics.[5]

Business career

[edit]

Kennedy set his future sights on embarking on a business career upon his graduation from Harvard. During his mid-to-late 20s, he made a large fortune as an active commodity and stock investor; he then reinvested much of his proceeds into film studios, real estate, and shipping lines. Although Kennedy never built a significant business from scratch, his timing as both buyer and seller was excellent.[6] When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed Kennedy in the $200–400 million group, equivalent to about $3.2 billion in 2023.[7][8][9]

After his death, various criminals, such as Frank Costello, boasted that they worked with Kennedy in bootlegging operations during Prohibition.[10] The most recent biographer David Nasaw claims that no credible evidence has been found to link Kennedy to bootlegging activities.[11] When asked about it during a public discussion held by the CUNY Graduate Center on his biography of Kennedy, Nasaw said:

What I found was that I went through every parcel of evidence. and anyone who had ever written he was a bootlegger, and I looked at their footnotes, I looked at their sources, I looked at what they had to say on the page. And I discovered, number one; that nobody calls him a bootlegger until the '70s. The Nixon people do everything they possibly can during the 1960 election to smash Joe Kennedy, and they call him everything but a bootlegger. It just doesn't come up. In the 70s, the conspiracy hunters, trying to connect him to the Mafia and the Mafia to the assassination, develop the bootlegger thesis. So I went back and I looked at the sources. The sources are Al Capone's piano tuner. These are the major sources. I'm not making this up. Al Capone's piano tuner, who claims that he overheard a conversation between Capone and Kennedy. Sam Giancana's nephew and half-brother, who write a book, and his daughter, who writes another book. Murray Humphreys', who's big in the Chicago Mafia, estranged wife. And Tina Sinatra. Is it Tina that? Yeah, Tina Sinatra. These are the sources. And they all report third hand. You know, "My dad told me that so-and-so said this." There's no evidence there. I would've been delighted, by the way, if there were. It would've made for a richer book. I could've talked about Momo and the Mafia, but there was no evidence there whatsoever.[12]

Early ventures

[edit]
Young man in his twenties in a suit, seated and looking back toward the camera
Kennedy in 1914, aged 25, when he claimed to be America's youngest bank president

Kennedy's first job after graduating from Harvard was a position as a state-employed bank examiner. This job allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy borrowed $45,000 (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2025) from family and friends and bought back control. At the age of 25, he was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America.[13] In May 1917, Kennedy was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Electric Company, New England's leading public utility at the time.[14]

Although he was skeptical of American involvement in World War I,[15] Kennedy sought to participate in wartime production as an assistant general manager of Fore River, a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. There, he oversaw the production of transports and warships.[16] Through this job, he became acquainted with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.[14]

Wall Street and stock market investments

[edit]

In 1919, Kennedy joined Hayden, Stone & Co., a prominent stock brokerage firm with offices in Boston and New York, where he became an expert dealing in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in tactics that were later considered to be insider trading and market manipulation violations.[17] He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the moment of the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast.[18] In 1923, he established his own investment company.[19] Kennedy subsequently became a multi-millionaire as a result of taking "short" positions following the 1929 stock market crash.[19]

Kennedy was enlisted in 1924 to help stabilize the stock of John D. Hertz's Yellow Cab Company, a taxi cab operator, against a bear raid; afterward, Hertz suspected Kennedy of carrying out such a raid against the stock himself.[20] In 1933, he helped establish a "stock pool" that bought large quantities of stock in Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF), an auto-glass manufacturer, and wash-traded huge volumes of stock among themselves while promoting the outright fraud that their company was related to Owens-Illinois, a glassmaker that made bottles which presumably would have profited from the imminent repeal of Prohibition.[21][22]

1929 Wall Street Crash

[edit]

Kennedy later claimed he understood that the rampant stock speculation of the late 1920s would lead to a market crash. It is said that he knew it was time to get out of the market when he received stock tips from a shoe-shine boy, but no evidence has been found of the anecdote and the first known version of the same tale was associated to Bernard Baruch in 1957.[23] Kennedy survived the crash "because he possessed a passion for facts, a complete lack of sentiment and a marvelous sense of timing".[24]

During the Great Depression, Kennedy shrewdly increased his wealth by devoting most of it to investment-grade real estate. In 1929, Kennedy's fortune was estimated to be $4 million (equivalent to $75 million in 2025).[8] By 1935, his wealth had increased to $180 million (equivalent to $4.23 billion in 2025).[8] He also acquired enough capital to establish million-dollar trust funds for each of his nine children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence.[25]

Investments

[edit]

Hollywood

[edit]
Studio photo of Kennedy as part of trade paper advertisement promoting Film Booking Offices of America's forthcoming attractions, May 1928

Kennedy generated windfall profits from reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood film studios. He began with film distribution in New England, buying first movie theaters in Massachusetts,[26] but quickly moved on to industry-wide arrangements and production.[27][28] While still at Hayden, Stone & Co., Kennedy boasted to a colleague, "Look at that bunch of pants pressers in Hollywood making themselves millionaires. I could take the whole business away from them."[29] One small studio, Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), specialized in Westerns produced cheaply. Its owner was in financial trouble, and asked Kennedy to help find a new owner. Kennedy formed his own group of investors and bought it for $1.5 million.[14]

In March 1926, Kennedy moved to Hollywood to focus on running film studios.[30] At that time, film studios were permitted to own exhibition companies, which were necessary to get their films on local screens. With that in mind, he bought controlling shares in Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters Corporation (KAO), which had more than 700 vaudeville theaters across the United States that had begun showing movies.[31] In October 1928, he formally merged his film companies FBO and KAO to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO)[32] and made a large amount of money in the process. Kennedy had no interest in vaudeville; he just wanted the theaters, which he planned to convert to movie houses for the film booking interests he ran in cooperation with Radio Corporation of America (RCA).[33] As the developer of photophone, a sound system for the new "talkies", RCA needed to forge a connection with Hollywood to sell its product. At the same time Kennedy knew that he needed to compete in the new market of sound films and to do so he would have to have access to a technology that was not proprietary.[14]

Lobby card for Sadie Thompson with head high portrait of woman in her thirties
Kennedy, along with fifteen others, signed a telegram warning that the release of Sadie Thompson starring Gloria Swanson would jeopardize the ability of the film industry to censor itself. Swanson needed financing for her film production company, and Kennedy began a three-year affair with her when he met her for lunch in New York after the film's release.[34]

Keen to buy the Pantages Theatre chain, which had 63 profitable theaters, Kennedy made an offer of $8 million (equivalent to $150 million in 2025). It was declined. He then stopped distributing his movies to Pantages. Still, Alexander Pantages declined to sell.[35] However, when Pantages was later charged and tried for rape, his reputation took a battering, and he accepted Kennedy's revised offer of $3.5 million (equivalent to $65.6 million in 2025). Pantages, who claimed that Kennedy had "set him up", was later found not guilty at a second trial. The girl who had accused Pantages of rape, Eunice Pringle, was rumored to have confessed on her deathbed that Kennedy was the mastermind of the plot to frame Pantages.[36][37] This rumor was later debunked by Pringle's daughter, Mary Worthington.[38] Kennedy made over $5 million (equivalent to $93.8 million in 2025) from his investments in Hollywood. During his three-year affair with film star Gloria Swanson,[39] he arranged the financing for her films The Love of Sunya (1927) and the ill-fated Queen Kelly (1928). The duo also used Hollywood's famous "body sculptor", masseuse Sylvia of Hollywood.[39] Their relationship ended when Swanson discovered that an expensive gift from Kennedy had actually been charged to her account.[40]

Liquor importing

[edit]

Kennedy ventured into aspects of the legal liquor business during Prohibition in the United States. As soon as it became legal to do so, Kennedy ventured into liquor importing. One of the shipping ventures he was involved in was the importation of large shipments of high-priced Scotch whisky where he earned a handsome profit in the process. Various contradictory "bootlegging" stories surrounding Kennedy have circulated but historians have not accepted them.[11][41][42] At the start of the Franklin Roosevelt administration in March 1933, Kennedy and future Congressman James Roosevelt II obtained the exclusive rights to import some alcoholic beverage brands to the United States from Great Britain, before Prohibition ended,[43][44] and later founded Somerset Importers, a business entity that acted as the exclusive American agent for Haig & Haig Scotch, Gordon's Dry Gin, Dewar's Scotch, King William IV Scotch Whisky,[45][46][47] and Riondo Puerto Rico Rum, and other imported drinks.[48][49] Kennedy kept his Somerset company for years.[50] In addition, Kennedy purchased spirits-importation rights from Schenley Industries,[51] a New York City liquor company with a Canadian distillery.[32] Though he possessed substantial investments in various shipping lines that imported significant shipments of liquor,[52] Kennedy himself drank little alcohol. He so disapproved of what he considered a stereotypical Irish vice that he offered his sons $1,000 not to drink until they turned 21.[53]

Real estate

[edit]

Kennedy reinvested the proceeds he made from liquor importing into various residential and commercial real estate ventures, much of it concentrated in New York City, and the Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida.[54][55] The most important purchase of his real estate investment career was marked by the land acquisition of the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart (the world's largest building at the time), which gave his family an important base in that city and an alliance with the Irish-American political leadership there to lay the groundwork for realizing his sons' future political ambitions.56 The Merchandise Mart's revenues became a principal source of wealth that formed much of the Kennedy family's private fortune, including being a source of funding for financing his sons' future political campaigns.

Personal life

[edit]

Marriage and children

[edit]

On October 7, 1914, Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald,[108] the eldest daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald,[109] in the private chapel of Archbishop William Henry O'Connell in Boston.[110] After a two-week honeymoon, the couple settled at 83 Beals Street in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts.[111]

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children:[112] Joseph Jr. (1915–1944), John (1917–1963), Rose Marie "Rosemary" (1918–2005), Kathleen (1920–1948), Eunice (1921–2009), Patricia (1924–2006), Robert (1925–1968), Jean (1928–2020), and Edward (1932–2009). Three of the Kennedys' sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts (1947–1953), a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1953–1960), and as 35th president of the United States (1961–1963); Robert F. Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general (1961–1964) and as a U.S. senator from New York (1965–1968); and Edward M. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009). One of the Kennedys' daughters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics for disabled people,[113] while another, Jean Kennedy Smith, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland.[114]

As Kennedy's business success expanded, he and his family lived in increasing prosperity in Massachusetts, New York, around Washington, D.C., London, as well as the French Riviera. Their two permanent homes were located in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and Palm Beach, Florida.[115][116]

Kennedy engaged in numerous extramarital relationships,[117] including relationships with actresses Gloria Swanson[108][118] and Marlene Dietrich[119] and with his secretary, Janet DesRosiers Fontaine.[120] He also managed Swanson's personal and business affairs.[121][122]

Lobotomy of Rosemary Kennedy

[edit]
Family portrait taken outside with children surrounding their parents
The Kennedy family at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, 1931. Rosemary Kennedy is seated on the far right.

When Rosemary Kennedy was 23 years old, doctors told Joseph Kennedy Sr. that a form of psychosurgery known as a lobotomy would help calm her mood swings and stop her occasional violent outbursts.[123][124] (Accounts of Rosemary's life indicated that she was intellectually disabled,[125][126] although some have raised questions about the Kennedys' accounts of the nature and scope of her disability.[127]) Rosemary's erratic behavior frustrated her parents; her father was especially worried that she would shame and embarrass the family and damage his political career and that of his other children.[127][126] Kennedy requested that surgeons perform a lobotomy on Rosemary. The lobotomy took place in November 1941.[125][128] Kennedy did not inform his wife about the procedure until after it was completed.[129] James W. Watts and Walter Freeman (both of George Washington University School of Medicine) performed the surgery.[130]

The lobotomy was a disaster,[125] leaving Rosemary Kennedy permanently incapacitated.[123] Her mental capacity diminished to that of a two-year-old child; she could not walk or speak intelligibly and was incontinent.[131] Following the lobotomy, Rosemary was immediately institutionalized.[132] In 1949, she was relocated to Jefferson, Wisconsin, where she lived for the rest of her life on the grounds of the St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children (formerly known as "St. Coletta Institute for Backward Youth").[133] Kennedy did not visit his daughter at the institution.[134] In Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter, author Kate Clifford Larson stated that Rosemary's lobotomy was hidden from the family for twenty years.[135] In 1961, after Kennedy suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak, his children were made aware of Rosemary's location.[135] The lobotomy did not become public knowledge until 1987.[136] Rosemary Kennedy died from natural causes[137] on January 7, 2005, at the age of 86.[129]

Dr. Bertram S. Brown, director of the National Institute of Mental Health who was previously an aide to President Kennedy, told a Kennedy biographer that Joseph Kennedy referred to Rosemary as mentally retarded rather than mentally ill in order to protect his son John's reputation for a presidential run. Brown added that the family's "lack of support for mental illness" was "part of a lifelong family denial of what was really so".[123][138][139][140]

Illness and death

[edit]
Kennedy (center) and family members sit at a table during his 75th birthday celebration in his home in Hyannis Port in 1963.

On December 19, 1961, at the age of 73, Kennedy suffered a stroke. He survived, but was left paralyzed on his right side. Thereafter, Kennedy suffered from aphasia, which severely affected his ability to speak. He remained mentally alert, regained certain functions with therapy, and began walking with a cane. Kennedy's speech also showed some improvement.[141] He began to experience excessive muscular weakness, which eventually required him to use a wheelchair. In 1964, Kennedy was taken to The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential in Philadelphia, a medical and rehabilitative center for those who have experienced brain injury.[141]

Kennedy's son Robert was shot on June 5, 1968 while running for president. He died the following morning at age 42.[142] In the aftermath of Robert's death, Kennedy made his last public appearance when he, his wife, and son Ted made a filmed message to the country.[143] Kennedy died at home in Hyannis Port the following year on November 18, 1969, two days before what would have been Robert's 44th birthday; he was 81 years old.[144] Kennedy had outlived four of his children.[145] He is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy's widow, Rose, is buried next to him following her death in 1995 at age 104, as was his daughter Rosemary after her death in 2005.[146]

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. 1 2 3 "Generations of the Kennedy Family | American Experience". www.pbs.org.
  2. ↑ "Joseph Kennedy | Biography, Facts, & Family". Encyclopedia Britannica. September 4, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Hilty, James (April 4, 2000). Robert Kennedy: Brother Protector. Temple University Press. ISBN 9781566397667 – via Google Books.
  4. ↑ Watson, William E.; Halus, Eugene J. Jr. (November 25, 2014). Irish Americans: The History and Culture of a People: The History and Culture of a People. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 9781610694674 – via Google Books.
  5. ↑ "All the Tragedy That Has Led to Belief in a Kennedy Curse". E! Online. August 2, 2019.
  6. ↑ David Nasaw, The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy (2012) pp. 168–69.
  7. ↑ "What is $300,000,000 in 1957 worth in 2023?".
  8. 1 2 3 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
  9. ↑ Smith, Richard Austin (November 1, 1957). "The Fifty-Million-Dollar Man". Fortune. sidebar: "America's Biggest Fortunes".
  10. ↑ Okrent, Daniel (April 26, 2010). "The Biggest Kennedy Myth". The Daily Beast. The Newsweek/Daily Beast Company LLC. Retrieved April 7, 2013.
  11. 1 2 Nasaw, pp. 79–81.
  12. ↑ "David Nasaw on The Patriarch". YouTube. CUNY Graduate Center. December 14, 2012. Retrieved April 2, 2026.
  13. ↑ Kessler, p. 25.
  14. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Joseph P. Kennedy - JFK Library". www.jfklibrary.org. April 26, 2023.
  15. ↑ Dallek, Robert (2003). An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963. p. 21.
  16. ↑ "A Rise to Prominence: John F. Kennedy's Paternal Lineage". National Park Service.
  17. ↑ Logevall, Fredrik (2021). JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956. Random House. p. 45.
  18. ↑ Beverly Gage, The Day Wall Street Exploded, Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 156.
  19. 1 2 Bernuth, Lauren Von (March 22, 2018). "Joseph Kennedy & How He Built The Kennedy Family Fortune Through Insider Trading". Archived from the original on October 27, 2021. Retrieved October 11, 2021.
  20. ↑ Chernow, Ron. The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance. Grove Atlantic. p. 307.
  21. ↑ Nasaw, p. 192.
  22. ↑ Ronald, Susan (2021). The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940. St. Martin's Publishing Group. p. 13.
  23. ↑ Shiller, Robert J. (2020). Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events. Princeton University Press. p. 237. ISBN 9780691212074. Retrieved September 6, 2024.
  24. ↑ "Essay: The Merits of Speculation", Time, September 22, 1967.
  25. ↑ Nasaw, p. 92, 131
  26. ↑ Dallek, Robert (2003). An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917 - 1963. p. 22.
  27. ↑ Nasaw, p. 66
  28. ↑ Black, Conrad (2012). "The Peculiar Life of Joseph Kennedy". The National Interest. No. 122. pp. 69–80. JSTOR 42896563.
  29. ↑ Beauchamp, Cari (2009) Joseph Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years p. 23, Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-1-4000-4000-1.
  30. ↑ Goodwin, Doris Kearns (1987). The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys. St. Martin's Press. pp. 345–46.
  31. ↑ Kessler, p. 53
  32. 1 2 Richard J. Whalen, The Founding Father, 1964.
  33. ↑ Haupert, Michael J. (2012). Entertainment Industry: A Reference Handbook. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 7.
  34. ↑ Kessler, pp. 60–61.
  35. ↑ Kessler, p. 57.
  36. ↑ Anger, Kenneth (1984). Hollywood Babylon II. New York: E. P. Dutton, Inc. p. 35.
  37. ↑ Beauchamp, Cari (2010). Joseph P. Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years. Vintage Books. pp. 297–298. ISBN 978-0-307-47522-0.
  38. ↑ "The Value of a Girl's Honor: The Remarkable Story of Eunice Pringle". The Homestead Blog. October 21, 2019.
  39. 1 2 Beauchamp, Cari (2009) Joseph Kennedy Presents: His Hollywood Years pp. 263–5, Knopf, New York. ISBN 978-1-4000-4000-1.
  40. ↑ Kessler, p. 86.
  41. ↑ Roos, Dave (April 26, 2023). "How Joseph Kennedy Made His Fortune (Hint: It Wasn't Bootlegging)". History.com.
  42. ↑ "Smashing Mythology: Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. and Bootlegging". National Park Service.
  43. ↑ "Joseph P. Kennedy Personal Papers". JFK Library. Retrieved April 22, 2025. ... Haig & Haig Scots Whisky, Gordon's Gins, Dewar's Scotch Whiskey, King William IV Scotch Whisky, and Riondo Puerto Rico Rum.... During a 1933 trip to Europe with Jimmy Roosevelt (FDR's son), Kennedy became involved in the import business and became the U.S. agent for Haig & Haig Ltd., John Dewar and Sons, Ltd. and Gordon's Dry Gin Company Ltd.. With these new contacts, Kennedy arranged for his company, Somerset Importers, to stockpile liquor imports for the end of Prohibition.
  44. ↑ Maier, Thomas (October 22, 2014). "Prohibition and Profit: The Secret Kennedy-Churchill-Roosevelt Deals". TIME. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
  45. ↑ "The Magical History of the Great Brora Distillery". whisky fun .com. Retrieved April 22, 2025. King William IV was a John Gillon brand and was distributed from U.K. by Ainslie & Heilbron. and exclusively Imported to USA by Bluebell in NYC
  46. ↑ "Whisky Shipping Crate". National Museum of American History. shipping crate side contained King William IV brand blended Scotch whisky that was produced by John Gillon & Company Ltd. of Glasgow, Scotland
  47. ↑ "John Gillon and Co". www.gracesguide.co.uk - Graces Guide. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
  48. ↑ "The Myth of Kennedy's Bootlegging". The Daily Beast. March 4, 2019. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
  49. ↑ "The Biggest Kennedy Myth". The Daily Beast. April 26, 2010. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
  50. ↑ Nasaw, p. 611.
  51. ↑ "James P. O'Donnell Oral History Interview" (PDF). JFK Library. Retrieved April 22, 2025.
  52. ↑ "KENNEDY: TIME OF DECISION". nytimes.com. June 24, 1979. Retrieved April 22, 2025. Once, when Robert Kennedy was running for the Presidency, he had a lunch with an impassioned young woman who worked with Cesar Chavez. "Your father owned Cutty Sark," she said accusingly. "He did not," Kennedy said. "Well then, he owned Schenley's," she said. "I don't know," he said calmly, "but whatever my father owned he doesn't own it anymore." He was not angry. The man who had arranged the lunch said, in the four years he had worked for Kennedy, that that was the only time he heard him speak of his father in that way.
  53. ↑ Leamer 308.
  54. ↑ "The Kennedy Wealth". PBS American Experience.
  55. ↑ "How Joe Kennedy Made His Millons". Life. January 25, 1963. p. 70.
  56. ↑ "Big 'Mart' Bought by Joseph Kennedy". The New York Times. July 22, 1945.
  57. ↑ James Langton, "End of the house that Joe built". The Sunday Telegraph via the Ottawa Citizen, March 22, 1998: A10.
  58. ↑ Di Nunzio, Mario R. (2011). Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Third American Revolution. ABC-CLIO. p. 55. ISBN 9780313392832.
  59. ↑ Nasaw, p. 208
  60. ↑ "ADDRESS OF HON. JOSEPH P. KENNEDY, CHAIRMAN OF SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION AT MEETING OF THE BOSTON CHAMBER OF COMMERCE" (PDF). sec.gov. November 15, 1934.
  61. ↑ Nasaw, p. 216
  62. ↑ Nassau, The Patriarch, pp. 219–228
  63. ↑ "Joseph P. Kennedy – JFK Library". www.jfklibrary.org. April 26, 2023.
  64. ↑ "Securities and Exchange Commission Historical Society". www.sechistorical.org.
  65. ↑ Leamer 93; Brinkley 127.
  66. ↑ Maier pp. 103–107.
  67. ↑ Smith pp. 122, 171, 379, 502; Alan Brinkley, Voices of Protest (1984) p. 127; Michael Kazin, The Populist Persuasion (1995) pp. 109, 123.
  68. ↑ JoEllen M Vinyard (June 7, 2011). Right in Michigan's Grassroots: From the KKK to the Michigan Militia. University of Michigan. p. 148. Retrieved July 21, 2018. kennedy coughlin.
  69. 1 2 Renehan, Edward Jr. (April 29, 2002). "Joseph Kennedy and the Jews". History News Network. Archived from the original on February 25, 2004. Retrieved May 3, 2025.
  70. ↑ Maier, Thomas (March 25, 2009). The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings: A Five-Generation History of the Ultimate Irish-Catholic Family. Basic Books. pp. 498–. ISBN 978-0-7867-4016-1.
  71. ↑
  72. ↑ Simons, Graham M. (April 30, 2020). The Secret US Plan to Overthrow the British Empire: War Plan Red. Frontline Books. ISBN 9781526712059 – via Google Books.
  73. ↑ Maier, Thomas (October 28, 2014). When Lions Roar: The Churchills and the Kennedys. Crown. ISBN 9780307956811 – via Google Books.
  74. ↑ Browne, Blaine T. (October 10, 2019). Mighty Endeavor: The American Nation and World War II. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 9781538114919 – via Google Books.
  75. ↑ Kieser, Egbert. Hitler on the Doorstep: Operation 'Sea Lion' : The German Plan to Invade Britain, 1940 Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1997 ISBN 1557503907
  76. ↑ Peter Fleming Operation Sea Lion: Hitler's Plot to Invade England London: Tauris Parke Paperbacks, 2011, page 90-91 ISBN 1848856997 Google Books; Retrieved 24 May 2017
  77. ↑ See Eyewitness.
  78. ↑ Kessler, p. 157
  79. ↑ Nasaw, pp. 564–572.
  80. ↑ Hersh 64.
  81. 1 2 Hersh 63.
  82. ↑ "The Roosevelts and the Kennedys". Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. November 22, 2013.
  83. 1 2 Boston Sunday Globe, November 10, 1940.
  84. ↑ Davis, John H. (1993). The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster. S.P.I. Books. p. 94. ISBN 978-1-56171-060-7.
  85. ↑ Leamer 115.
  86. ↑ Hersh 64; Renehan 29.
  87. ↑ Renehan 60.
  88. ↑ Renehan 26–27; Leamer 136.
  89. ↑ Renehan, "Joseph Kennedy and the Jews".
  90. ↑ Leamer 134.
  91. ↑ Fleming, Thomas. The New Dealers' War: F.D.R. And The War Within World War II, Basic Books, 2001.
  92. ↑ Renehan 311.
  93. ↑ Kessler, p. 277
  94. ↑ Beito, David T. (2025). FDR: A New Political Life (First ed.). Chicago: Carus Books. pp. 126–127. ISBN 978-1637700693.
  95. ↑ Beito, David T. (2025). FDR: A New Political Life (First ed.). Chicago: Carus Books. pp. 126–127. ISBN 978-1637700693.
  96. ↑ Logevall, Fredrik (2021). JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956. Random House Publishing Group. p. 237.
  97. ↑ Amanda Smith, ed., Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy, pp. 408–463.
  98. ↑ Nasaw, pp. 492–96, quote p. 496.
  99. ↑ Leamer pp. 152–53; William E. Leuchtenburg, In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush (2001) pp. 68–73.
  100. ↑ Leamer pp 313, 434; Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor. American Pharaoh: Mayor Richard J. Daley -- His Battle for Chicago and the Nation (2001) p. 250; Timothy J. Meagher. The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (2005) p. 150.
  101. ↑ Leamer p. 349.
  102. ↑ William Edward Leuchtenburg (2001). In the Shadow of FDR: From Harry Truman to George W. Bush. Cornell University Press. pp. 80–. ISBN 0-8014-8737-4.
  103. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (May 24, 1996). "Kennedy and Nixon: An Uneasy Relationship". The New York Times. Retrieved August 1, 2013.
  104. 1 2 3 4 Michael O'Brien, John F. Kennedy: A Biography (2005), 250–54, 274–79, 396–400; Thomas C. Reeves, The Life and Times of Joe McCarthy (1982), 442–3; Maier, The Kennedys 270–280.
  105. ↑ Kessler, p. 389.
  106. ↑ "Parents at the Inaugurations – Presidents' Parents". Presidentsparents.com. Archived from the original on June 2, 2013. Retrieved May 9, 2014.
  107. ↑ Beauchamp, Cari (January 4, 2012). "Two Sons, One Destiny". The Hive.
  108. 1 2 Graham, James (October 7, 2014). "The Wedding That Changed American History". Time.
  109. ↑ DeCosta-Klipa, Nik (May 17, 2017). "Meet Honey Fitz: The 'pixie like' mayor of Boston (and JFK's grandfather)". Boston.com.
  110. ↑ "Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. November 3, 2021.
  111. ↑ Nasaw, p. 42
  112. ↑ "Eunice Kennedy Shriver's Death Leaves 2 Living Kennedy Siblings". Associated Press. March 25, 2015.
  113. ↑ Baranauckas, Carla (August 11, 2009). "Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Influential Founder of Special Olympics, Dies at 88". The New York Times.
  114. ↑ "Last living sibling of John F. Kennedy celebrates her 91st birthday". IrishCentral.com. February 20, 2019.
  115. ↑ "Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Personal Papers". John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum.
  116. ↑ Smith, Jeffery K. (2010). Bad Blood: Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert F. Kennedy, and the Tumultuous 1960s. AuthorHouse. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4520-8443-5.
  117. ↑ Heil, Emily (July 11, 2016). "New Kick Kennedy bio recounts her father's affairs with Hollywood actresses". The Washington Post.
  118. ↑ "Kennedy and Swanson, as if We Didn't Know: AND JOE The Star-Crossed Love Affair of Gloria Swanson and Joe Kennedy by Axel Madsen (William Morrow/Arbor House: $18.95; 328 pp., illustrated)". February 14, 1988 – via Los Angeles Times.
  119. ↑ Beauchamp, Cari (February 13, 2009). "It Happened at the Hotel du Cap". The Hive.
  120. ↑ Hosenball, Mark (October 5, 1997). "The JFK–Marilyn Hoax". Newsweek.
  121. ↑ Welsch 2013, p. 205.
  122. ↑ Welsch 2013, p. 237.
  123. 1 2 3 Block, Jennie Weiss (2002). Copious hosting: a theology of access for people with disabilities. Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 56. ISBN 9780826413499.
  124. ↑ "Rosemary Kennedy: The Truth About Her Lobotomy". People. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
  125. 1 2 3 McNeil, Liz (September 6, 2018). "The Untold Story of JFK's Sister, Rosemary Kennedy, and Her Disastrous Lobotomy". People.
  126. 1 2 Gordon, Meryl (October 6, 2015). "'Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter,' by Kate Clifford Larson". The New York Times.
  127. 1 2 "The exiled Kennedy". The Independent. January 15, 2005. Archived from the original on June 17, 2022.
  128. ↑ McNeil, Liz (September 13, 2018). "Unseen Letters from JFK's Sister Rosemary, Who Underwent a Lobotomy, Reveal Depth of Her 'Loss'". People.
  129. 1 2 Cornwell, Rupert (January 10, 2005). "Obituaries: Rosemary Kennedy". The Independent. Archived from the original on June 17, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  130. ↑ Kessler, Ronald, The Sins of the Father, Warner Books, 1996, p. 243.
  131. ↑ Henley, Jon (August 12, 2009). "The Forgotten Kennedy". The Guardian.
  132. ↑ Leamer, p. 322.
  133. ↑ Leamer, p. 412, and caption to photo of the house facing p. 650.
  134. ↑ Collier, Peter; Horowitz, David (1984). The Kennedys. Summit Books. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-671-44793-9.
  135. 1 2 McNeil, Liz (September 3, 2015). "Why Rosemary Kennedy's Siblings Didn't See Her for 20 Years After Her Lobotomy". People.
  136. ↑ O'Dowd, Niall (November 9, 2020). "Remembering the sad and dreadful life of Rosemary Kennedy". IrishCentral.com.
  137. ↑ "Sister of President John F Kennedy dies". The Daily Telegraph. January 8, 2005. Archived from the original on January 11, 2022. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
  138. ↑ Kessler, pp. 252–253.
  139. ↑ Shorter, Edward (2000). The Kennedy Family and the History of Mental Retardation. Temple University Press. pp. 32–33. ISBN 1566397839.
  140. ↑ Murawski, Wendy W.; Spencer, Sally (2011). Collaborate, Communicate, and Differentiate!: How to Increase Student Learning in Today's Diverse Schools. Corwin Press. p. 3. ISBN 9781412981842.
  141. 1 2 "People: May 22, 1964", Time, May 22, 1964.
  142. ↑ "RFK 50 years later: A look back at the assassination of Bobby Kennedy". NBC News. June 6, 2018.
  143. ↑ "Edward & Rose Kennedy thanks the nation following Robert F. Kennedy's assassination". YouTube. June 15, 1968. Archived from the original on December 12, 2021.
  144. ↑ Kakutani, Michiko (November 29, 2012). "David Nasaw's 'Patriarch,' on Joseph P. Kennedy". The New York Times.
  145. ↑
  146. ↑ Katz, Alex; Andersen, Travis (September 22, 2011). "Friends, family bid farewell to Kennedy in D.C., Brookline". Boston.com – via The Boston Globe.

Bibliography

[edit]
  • Brinkley, Alvin. Voices of Protest. Vintage, 1983.
  • Goodwin, Doris K. The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga. Simon & Schuster, 1987.
  • Hersh, Seymour. The Dark Side of Camelot. Back Bay Books, 1998.
  • Kessler, Ronald. The Sins of the Father: Joseph P. Kennedy and the Dynasty He Founded. Warner, 1996
  • Leamer, Laurence. The Kennedy Men: 1901–1963. Harper, 2002.
  • Logevall, Fredrik. JFK: Coming of Age in the American Century, 1917-1956 (2020) excerpt
  • Maier, Thomas. The Kennedys: America's Emerald Kings. Basic Books, 2003.
  • Nasaw, David. The Patriarch: The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy. The Penguin Press, 2012; excerpt
  • O'Brien, Michael. John F. Kennedy: A Biography. St Martin's Press, 2005.
  • Renehan, Edward. The Kennedys at War: 1937–1945. Doubleday, 2002.
  • Renehan, Edward. "Joseph Kennedy and the Jews". History News Network. April 29, 2002.
  • Ronald, Susan. The Ambassador: Joseph P. Kennedy at the Court of St. James's 1938-1940 (2021) excerpt
  • Schwarz, Ted. Joseph P. Kennedy: The Mogul, the Mob, the Statesman, and the Making of an American Myth. Wiley, 2003.
  • Welsch, Tricia (2013). Gloria Swanson: Ready for Her Close-Up. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1-62103-991-4.(subscription required)
  • Whalen, Richard J. The Founding Father: The Story of Joseph P. Kennedy. The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1964.

Primary sources

[edit]
  • Smith, Amanda (ed.). Hostage to Fortune: The Letters of Joseph P. Kennedy. Viking, 2001, the major collection of letters to and from Kennedy
[edit]
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