For Immediate Release: February 2, 1997
Further information: Tom McNaught (617) 514-1662
The John F. Kennedy Library and Museum announces the May 31 opening of a new, expanded exhibit on First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy which will profile her extraordinary accomplishments and contribution to the nation during the Kennedy Presidency.
To coincide with the opening of the expanded exhibit, the Kennedy Library and Museum will also feature a special, temporary display on the wedding of John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. This display, which features Jacqueline Kennedy's wedding dress, her engagement ring, and the original copy of a poem she wrote for her husband on the first anniversary of their marriage, will run through Labor Day.
The wedding gown, made of 50 yards of ivory silk taffeta, was recently restored by staff from the Textile Conservation Center of the American Textile History Museum in Lowell. It will be the first public display of the wedding dress which was donated to the Kennedy Library by Caroline and John Kennedy from their mother's estate.
The expanded exhibit on the First Lady will document Mrs. Kennedy's accomplishments as First Lady, particularly in the restoration of the White House and in the development of 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.
Included in the exhibit will be the red dress Mrs. Kennedy wore while giving her televised tour of the White House, together with the Emmy award she received for the CBS broadcast.
Through the generosity of Caroline and John Kennedy, the Kennedy Library and Museum received a major gift from the estate of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who died in 1994. In addition to the wedding dress, the donation included many of the personal artifacts, documents and photographs that will be displayed in the First Lady exhibit, including a pair of trompe l'oeil doors from her White House dressing room.