Kennedy family

• 1. Introduction

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  The Kennedy family of America kept at least one member in federal elected office in every year from 1947 until 2011. That unbroken run began with a young congressman from Massachusetts named John F. Kennedy. It ended only when his nephew, Patrick J. Kennedy II, retired from the House of Representatives as a member from Rhode Island. Few American families have held public attention for so long, in so many arenas. The name has also been attached to banks, film studios, race tracks and charities. This documentary asks where such a family comes from, and how a clan of Irish immigrants came to hold that kind of power. It also asks what happens when the family's own members stop agreeing on where its name belongs.

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• 2. From Cooper to Financier

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  A genealogist named Brian Kennedy traced the family's deepest roots in his work JFK's Irish O'Kennedy Ancestors. He found them in a Gaelic clan called Ó Cinnéide Fionn, the Grey Kennedys. Two sister clans, the Brown Kennedys and the Red Kennedys, shared with them the rule of the Kingdom of Ormond. In 1546, the Grey Kennedy progenitor Diarmaid Ó Cinnéide Fionn became owner of Knigh Castle, near what is now Puckane in County Tipperary.

  In 1740, the family had lost ground to the new Anglo-Irish order, and it moved to Dunganstown, near New Ross in County Wexford. Patrick Kennedy was born there. He and Bridget Murphy sailed from New Ross to Boston in 1849, fleeing the Great Famine. Patrick lived from 1823 to 1858, and Bridget from 1824 to 1888. In East Boston, he worked as a barrel maker, or cooper, and the couple raised five children.

  Their youngest was Patrick Joseph Kennedy, known as P. J. He went into business and won a seat in the Massachusetts legislature in 1884. He served in the lower house until 1889, then as a state senator until 1895. He and his wife, Mary Augusta Hickey, had four children.

  The eldest, Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr., turned the family into a financial power. He made a private fortune in banking and securities trading. He then widened it through filmmaking and real estate. He founded Somerset Importers and owned Chicago's Merchandise Mart. Other ventures tied to the family include RKO Pictures, Hialeah Park Race Track, the Old Colony Realty Associates and the magazine George.

  In 1914, Joseph married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald. Her father was John Francis Fitzgerald, nicknamed Honey Fitz, who had been P. J.'s political rival. The marriage joined two Boston Irish houses that had competed for the same voters.

  Joseph's fortune opened doors in Washington. President Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed him the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in 1934. After that came the chairmanship of the Maritime Commission, and then the post of ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940. President Harry Truman later named him to the Hoover Commission, which studied how to reorganize the federal government.

  Rose received her own honor in 1951, when Pope Pius XII named her a countess. The citation praised her exemplary motherhood and many charitable works. Nine children were about to carry the family name into a very different arena.

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• 3. Nine Children, One Ambition

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  Joseph and Rose Kennedy gave their children names that would become familiar around the world. Joseph Jr., called Joe, lived from 1915 to 1944. John, called Jack, lived from 1917 to 1963. Rose Marie, called Rosemary, lived from 1918 to 2005, and Kathleen, called Kick, from 1920 to 1948. Eunice lived from 1921 to 2009, Patricia from 1924 to 2006, and Robert, called Bobby, from 1925 to 1968. Jean lived from 1928 to 2020, and Edward, called Ted, from 1932 to 2009.

  Joseph Sr. expected his eldest son, Joe Jr., to enter politics and one day become president. Joe Jr. went to the 1940 Democratic National Convention as a Massachusetts delegate. When the United States entered World War II, he enlisted in the Navy. In 1944, the bomber he was piloting exploded in flight, and he was killed.

  The father's ambition then fell on Jack. Jack had been thinking about journalism. He had written a book, Why England Slept, and had done some reporting for Hearst Newspapers. Instead, after his own Navy service, he ran for Congress. He spent six years in the House representing Massachusetts's 11th district, then moved to the Senate in 1953.

  He stayed in the Senate until 1960. That year he narrowly defeated the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, in the presidential election. The son who had not been groomed for the White House had become the family's answer to the loss of the one who had.

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• 4. The Kennedy Administration

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  When Jack Kennedy took office in 1961, his brother Robert became attorney general. Their brother-in-law Sargent Shriver was made director of the brand-new Peace Corps. Ted, the youngest brother, was already in the Senate, where he had held the Massachusetts seat since 1962. Three relatives were at the center of one administration.

  The administration's record includes the Alliance for Progress with Latin America and the founding of the Peace Corps. In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended in a peaceful resolution. In 1963 came the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the Constitution, ending the poll tax, also belongs to this period. The Apollo spaceflight program continued, with the goal of landing a man on the Moon.

  Kennedy also introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to Congress. He did not live to see it become law. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed it. Kennedy died in 1963, and the family stayed under intense media attention during his presidency and long afterward.

  Robert remained attorney general until 1964. In 1965, he became a senator from New York, and for the next three years he and Ted sat in the Senate together. That overlap ended in 1968, the year Robert died.

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• 5. Causes Beyond Politics

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  Eunice Kennedy Shriver, the fifth of the nine children, took her energy outside elected office. She played a vital role in creating the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, part of the National Institutes of Health. She also helped establish the Special Olympics. Her husband, Sargent Shriver, had a public career of his own. He led the Chicago Board of Education from 1955 to 1960, then the Peace Corps, then the Office of Economic Opportunity. He later served as ambassador to France, from 1968 to 1970.

  Other descendants of Joseph and Rose have worked as lawyers, authors and activists for people with physical and intellectual disabilities. A long list of organizations carries the family's influence. It includes Best Buddies International, the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, and VSA at the Kennedy Center. It also includes the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Stop Handgun Violence and the Waterkeeper Alliance.

  Harvard University has been a second home for many Kennedys. The family has given generously to its John F. Kennedy School of Government. The same pull toward institutions and public purpose runs through the family's philanthropy and its politics.

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• 6. Generations Of Office

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  By the 1980s, a third generation had arrived. Joseph P. Kennedy II, son of Robert, represented Massachusetts's 8th district in the House from 1987 to 1999. Ted's son Patrick held Rhode Island's 1st district seat from 1995, after four years in the Rhode Island state house starting in 1989. Ted was still in the Senate while both of his relatives sat in the House.

  Other cousins and in-laws spread across state and local government. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003. Mark Kennedy Shriver was a Maryland state delegate for the same years. Bobby Shriver sat on the Santa Monica city council from 2004 to 2012 and was mayor in 2010. Edward M. Kennedy Jr. served as a Connecticut state senator from 2015 to 2019. Some spouses made their own marks too. Arnold Schwarzenegger, then husband of Maria Shriver, was governor of California from 2003 to 2011. Andrew Cuomo, then husband of Kerry Kennedy, became secretary of Housing and Urban Development and later governor of New York.

  In November 2012, Joseph P. Kennedy III, son of Joseph II and grandson of Robert, won election to the House from Massachusetts's 4th district. He served from 2013 until 2021. In 2020 he challenged the incumbent Ed Markey in the Massachusetts Senate primary and lost. He was the first Kennedy ever to lose an election in that state.

  The 2020s brought several appointments from President Joe Biden. Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Ted's second wife, became ambassador to Austria in 2021. Caroline Kennedy, the president's daughter, was named ambassador to Australia in 2022. She had previously served as ambassador to Japan under President Barack Obama, from 2013 to 2017. Joseph III was named special envoy to Northern Ireland in the same year as Caroline's Australia appointment.

  A fourth generation is now stepping forward. Jack Schlossberg, Caroline's son, is running as a Democrat for New York's 12th congressional district.

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• 7. A Family Divided

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  For generations, one fact about the Kennedys held without exception. Every Kennedy elected to public office has served as a Democrat. Relatives who worked for the party or held cabinet posts did so in Democratic administrations. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke that pattern.

  Robert Jr. ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat. In October 2023, he changed his affiliation to Independent. Several family members spoke out against his campaign, mainly because of his anti-vaccine views. They endorsed President Joe Biden instead.

  In August 2024, two months before the election, Robert Jr. withdrew and endorsed the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. Trump won. He then nominated Robert Jr. to be secretary of Health and Human Services. The Senate confirmed him by a vote of 52-48. The man who had run against his own family's party now held a cabinet seat in a Republican administration.

  His wife's brother-in-law line is not the only link to the new government. Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, wife of Robert F. Kennedy III, has held senior intelligence and budget roles from 2025.

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• 8. The Coat Of Arms

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  On the 17th of March 1961, the Chief Herald of Ireland presented John F. Kennedy with a grant of arms. The grant covers all descendants of Patrick Kennedy, the cooper who sailed from New Ross. The date fell on Saint Patrick's Day, a fitting moment for a family that had crossed the Atlantic from Wexford.

  The design shows three gold closed helmets on a black field. It echoes symbols in the arms of the O'Kennedys of Ormonde and the FitzGeralds of Desmond, the lines from which the family descends. The FitzGerald link also recalls Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy.

  The crest is an armored hand holding four arrows between two olive branches. Both elements come from the coat of arms of the United States. They are also said to symbolize Kennedy and his brothers. Four arrows, one hand and a pair of olive branches sum up in small form what the family had become.

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