The Kennedy White House: Family Life and Pictures, 1961-1963 Hardback - 2001

-- Julie N. Eisenhower

"The Kennedy White House" is the first truly intimate look at Kennedy family life inside the White House. It is an unprecedented visit behind the scenes, revealing the world's most famous family in the world's most famous house. Author Carl Sferrazza Anthony scoured the Kennedy Library archives for never-before-seen color and black-and-white photographs that succeed in illustrating the Kennedy family story -- the joys and tragedies, celebrations and anniversaries, informal family gatherings and escapes to their private homes in Virginia, Palm Beach, Newport, and Hyannis Port. The book also explores for the first time the relationships between Jack and Jackie's nuclear family and both of their extended families.

The 337 full-color and black-and-white photos, taken by the primary White House photographers, are unstaged and provide a far more natural, spontaneous, and realistic portrait of the family than ever before; most of them, including color photographs of each of the private rooms, have never been seen, and they present an unparalleled look at life as it was lived behind the White House doors.

This is also the first book to place the Kennedy family within the context of the culture of the early 1960s and tell the story of the president's personal maturity through his evolving family relationships. Historical events like the Cuban Missile Crisis are uniquely viewed from the family's perspective.

An appealing combination of history, biography, and popular culture, "The Kennedy White House"sheds new light on a family that continues to fascinate the American public forty years after they first captivated our attention.