Joseph Patrick Kennedy: Father Of America's Most Famous Political Leaders

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| Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Sr. | by | | History 223 Dr. | November 18, 2013 | | Patriarch of America’s most famous political family Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. is best known as the father of three political leaders: President John F. Kennedy, U.S. Representative Ted Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, who served as a U.S. senator and attorney general. In addition to fathering famous sons Joseph Kennedy was a successful banker, investor, movie producer, SEC chairman and U.S. Ambassador. The early years Joseph Patrick “Joe” Kennedy the grandson of Irish immigrants was born on September 6, 1888, to Patrick Joseph “PJ” and Mary Augusta Hickey Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts. His father was a barkeeper and politician. PJ owned a local…show more content…
There he learned the in s and outs of banking as an examiner. He became highly respected in the Boston banking circle. When the firm was in danger of an hostile take-over Joe acted swiftly and raised money the save the firm. After saving the firm Joe was rewarded and named president of the Trust firm. At age twenty-five Joe was the youngest bank president in the United States. He also found work as a shipyard manager. There he oversaw the production of transports and warships critical to the war. This job brought him into contact with the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Due to his job at the shipyard Joe was granted differed status during World War I. Some would later call him a draft dodger. Starting a family In 1914, Joseph P. Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald; the couple would eventually raise four sons, Joseph Patrick "Joe" Jr. (born in 1915), John Fitzgerald (born in 1917), Robert Francis (born in 1925) and Edward "Teddy" (born in 1932), and five daughters: Rose Marie "Rosemary" (born in 1918), Kathleen (born in 1920), Eunice (born in 1921), Patricia (born in 1924) and Jean Ann (born in 1928). To Joe his family was the most important thing in the world and his children was the center of his universe.…show more content…
Kennedy suffered a debilitating stroke in 1961 partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Four of his nine children died before him: Joseph Jr. was killed in a W.W.II plane crash in 1944. Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948. John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968. He died at the Kennedy compound, on Cape Cod along Nantucket Sound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on November 18, 1969, at the age of 81. When he died in 1969, his estate was estimated to be worth $400 million. Legacy Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. was a genius, concurring Wall Street, Hollywood and Washington. When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed him in the $200–400 million band[13] ($1.66 billion–3.32 billion today[14]), meaning that it estimated him to be between the ninth and sixteenth richest person in the United States at that time. The purchase of Chicago’s merchandise Mart provided enough income for generations Kennedys to live on. In 1998 the family to the Merchandise Mart for $600 million, John Jr. and Caroline received $40 million each. Bibliography Koskoff, David E. Joseph P. Kennedy: A Life and Times. Prentice-Hall, Inc.,

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