| 
| 
| 
| 
Actress Jill Lawrence brings the woman we now know as Jackie O’ to life by interpreting her tireless efforts for the public good. This program is funded by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities.
She was a Kennedy. She was an Onassis. She did not define herself by her husbands. Her enduring legacy would be the force of nature that was Jacqueline!
As a young mother she was catapulted onto the World Stage when her husband John F. Kennedy became the 35th President of the United States. She quickly observed that America’s rich, cultural and architectural past was being destroyed in the name of progress. Realizing that the future generations would need the insights of the past for guidance, Jacqueline embarked upon a series of preservation efforts: First the White House, and then Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C, and eventually Grand Central Station in NYC.
Such preservation efforts galvanized the rest of the country to protect its historic monuments. Aided by her public profile, her work helped bring about the Historic Preservation Act of 1966: the most far-reaching preservation legislation ever enacted in the United States.
By conveying Jacqueline's personal and professional struggles and victories, a poignant portrait of the First Lady, wife and mother, and activist vividly comes alive. By bringing historic preservation center stage, Jacqueline's gift for the Future was to preserve the Past.
