Jacqueline Kennedy and the Architecture of First Lady Diplomacy

"While Jacqueline Kennedy is one of the most well-known U.S. first ladies, her memory is often reduced to fashion icon or grieving widow. In this book, author Elizabeth J. Natalle demonstrates how Mrs. Kennedy deftly used 'soft diplomacy' to aid her husband’s foreign policy efforts and set the standard for future first lady diplomacy. Dr. Natalle’s rich analysis of Mrs. Kennedy’s use of fashion, language, culture, and interpersonal relationships as forms of diplomacy both at home and abroad sheds new light on the important role the popular first lady played in her husband’s administration, and expands our understanding of Mrs. Kennedy’s contributions to the first lady institution." —Lisa M. Burns, Professor of Media Studies at Quinnipiac University, Author of First Ladies and the Fourth Estate
"This well-researched, beautifully written text highlights Jacqueline Kennedy’s pioneering use of soft power in diplomacy as first lady. Mrs. Kennedy often gets pigeonholed as a style icon, but Elizabeth J. Natalle’s close analysis of her rhetoric and communication styles and love for arts and culture shows instead that this first lady had key diplomatic influence—a role, indeed, that her husband, President John F. Kennedy greatly relied on. Whether in her use of culture, fashion, language, or state-to-state interactions, Jacqueline Kennedy, as Natalle shows, performed an 'embodied rhetoric' of soft power and left a legacy for diplomatic action that First Ladies have reckoned with and tried to emulate to this day." —Katherine A. S. Sibley, Professor of History and Director of American Studies at Saint Joseph’s University, Editor of A Companion to First Ladies
"There has been a long history of activism and influence in the first ladyship, even if historians often overlook it, and this welcome and highly readable book promises to add a vitally important perspective to not only Mrs. Kennedy’s extraordinary life but to the role of the first lady as diplomat and our understanding of 'soft diplomacy.'" —Robert P. Watson, Professor of American Studies at Lynn University, Author of The Presidents’ Wives