Kennedy Library Expands First Lady Exhibit May 31 Opening to Feature Special Display of Wedding Dress

For Immediate Release: May 31, 2002
Further information: Tom McNaught 617-514-1662

Boston, MA- A new, expanded exhibit on First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy which profiles her extraordinary accomplishments and contribution to the nation during the Kennedy Presidency will open on May 31 at the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.

To coincide with the opening of the expanded exhibit, the Kennedy Library and Museum will also feature a special, temporary exhibit on the wedding of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. The special exhibit, which will run through Labor Day, will include Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress, her engagement ring, and the original copy of a poem she wrote about her husband as a gift to him on the occasion of their first anniversary.

The expanded exhibit on the First Lady will feature Mrs. Kennedy's restoration of the White House and her contribution to its collection of art and historical furnishings. The exhibit will also cover her childhood and youth, her comments on life in the White House, her support of the arts, her leadership in historic preservation and her work as a traveling ambassador.

Materials on display will include rare photographs, video footage of her televised tour of the White House, the Emmy award she received for the broadcast, the camera she used as the "Inquiring Camera Girl" for the Washington Herald‑Tribune , her poems and paintings, items from her childhood and school days, and clothing such as the red suit the First Lady wore while conducting the televised White House tour. A focal point of one of the exhibits will be a pair of decorative painted doors from Mrs.Kennedy's White House dressing room which depict some of her most prized possessions. The doors will frame the suit, coat, hat and muff Mrs. Kennedy wore on January 20, 1961 on the bitter winter day John F. Kennedy took the oath of office.

Also to be displayed for the first time at the Kennedy Library is a three-foot Egyptian statue of a man from 2400 BC given to Mrs. Kennedy by Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser in appreciation for her role in helping save the temples in the Nile Valley.

The expanded exhibit is made possible by items from Mrs. Onassis' estate, donated to the John F. Kennedy Library and Museum by her children Caroline and John.

The  John F. Kennedy Library and Museum is a presidential library administered by the National Archives and Records Administration.