Caroline Kennedy

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy was born on November 27, 1957, at New York Hospital in New York City. She is the daughter of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and John F. Kennedy, who was then a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. She is named after her maternal aunt, Lee Radziwill, and her maternal great-great-grandmother, Caroline Ewing Bouvier. Kennedy had two brothers: John F. Kennedy Jr., born on November 25, 1960, and Patrick Kennedy, who was born prematurely and died shortly after birth in 1963. Her family resided in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., during her early childhood.

Her father became president of the United States in 1960, and Kennedy spent her early years in the White House. She was often photographed riding her pony "Macaroni" around the White House grounds. Her childhood included receiving gifts from international dignitaries, such as a puppy from Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and a Yucatán pony from Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson. During this period, she was also the subject of a comic strip and was the namesake of the British pirate radio station Radio Caroline, established in 1964. Her personality has been described by historians as "a trifle remote and a bit shy at times," but "remarkably unspoiled."

In 1963, Kennedy's father was assassinated. Following this event, she and her brother, John Jr., moved with their mother, Jacqueline Kennedy, to the residence of their maternal grandmother, Janet Bouvier Auchincloss, in Georgetown. Jacqueline Kennedy later married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, prompting the family to move to Skorpios, his Greek island. In 1967, Kennedy christened the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy during a public ceremony.

Kennedy’s early years included a summer trip to Ireland with her mother, where they met President Éamon de Valera and visited the Kennedy ancestral home. During this trip, she was involved in a notable incident where her play in a pond was surrounded by press photographers, leading her mother to request privacy with local authorities. Following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, Jacqueline Kennedy expressed concern about the safety of her children, leading her to consider relocating from the United States; she later moved to Greece with her children after marrying Aristotle Onassis.

Kennedy was educated at Stone Ridge School of the Sacred Heart and attended the Brearley School and Convent of the Sacred Heart in Manhattan. She graduated from Concord Academy in Massachusetts in 1975. She then attended Harvard University, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine arts from Radcliffe College in 1980. During her college years, she worked as a photographer’s assistant at the 1976 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria, and interned at the New York Daily News. She also wrote about her visit to Graceland shortly after Elvis Presley’s death for Rolling Stone magazine.

Kennedy pursued legal studies at Columbia Law School, earning her Juris Doctor degree in 1988, and passed the New York State bar exam in 1989. She worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan, where she met her future husband, designer Edwin Schlossberg. They have three children: Rose, Tatiana, and Jack.

In her professional life, Kennedy has been involved in various fields including literature, law, politics, education reform, and charity work. She supported Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and later served as the co-chair of his Vice Presidential Search Committee. In 2013, she was appointed by President Barack Obama as the United States ambassador to Japan, serving until 2017. In 2022, she was nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed as the United States ambassador to Australia, serving from 2022 until 2024.