[excerpts from Camera Girl, by Carl Sferrazza Anthony] -------------- Reviewing her early writings during her train ride from New York to the Kingston, Rhode Island, station near Newport, would remind Jackie that she not only had a gift for adapting the events of her life into fictionalized stories but had always relied on doing so, particularly as a way of responding to the unpleasant incidents of her life, including her parents' divorce. ...
On October 2, 1950, Jacqueline Bouvier began her first day at George Washington University, navigating around the urban campus in D.C.'s Foggy Bottom neighborhood. Its buildings were a hodgepodge of converted nineteenth-century homes, dormitories built in the 1930s, and a new Student Union Hall....
Most American College students attended one school; this was Jackie's third. Most seniors had already taken general study classes. She was changing majors which meant a heavier workload. Her class was 40 percent women, but her commitment to graduating made her an anomaly in an era when those who got a diploma instead of a fiance were considered socially unsuccessful.
Despite her having to live under Mummy's thumb and commute to school, GWU proved an ideal environment. Many of her striving middle-class classmates were the first in their families to attend college, often on the G.I. Bill, and she shared their view that education was the path to success. By not returning to a college dominated by her social peers, most focused on marriage, she spared herself their judgment. During her year at GWU, she unapologetically demonstrated her intellect and drive.
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... Now [after Jackie's graduation] it seemed that Janet felt the time had come for Jackie to do as she wanted and find a husband.
Jackie was well aware of how many of her peers were engaged without the anxiety of Mummy harping on the subject of potential spouses.
... During the winter social season, elite Washington families sent their adult children to the weekly Mrs. Shippen's Dancing Class at the Sulgrave Club on Dupont Circle. As Gore Vidal recalled, students were taught "to deport themselves in such a way that in due course they would marry someone from the dancing class . . . and settle down to a decorous life."
One Shippen's event Jackie attended with Mummy and Unk that winter was the St. Valentine's Day dance. There she met John Husted, a tall, blond, handsome New York banker, and a guest of his aunt, Helen Husted. His parents knew the Auchinclosses and also Daddy.
John had gone to St. Paul's prep school in New Hampshire, then Yale; served in the war; and worked on Wall Street. Jackie knew two of his sisters from Miss Porter's School. "I was immediately attracted to her," he readily admitted. Mummy approved.
And while Jackie may not have taken John's instant ardor with great enthusiasm she soon recognized that his mere existence had put a stop to Mummy's badgering. ...
...Headquartered at the original Herald Building downtown, two blocks north and three blocks east of the White House, at 1307 H Street, the Washington Times-Herald newspaper occupied four stories. The newsroom was on the ground floor, its windows facing out onto the street. Here, as executive editor, Frank Waldrop had a large glassed-in office, which was where Jackie first came to meet with him in early October 1951.
Initially, Waldrop recalled she "mumbled around saying something about pictures," immediately mentioning photography. He bluntly asked, "Do you really want to go into journalism or do you want to hang around here until you get married?"
"No, sir," Jackie replied. "I want to make a career."
"If you're serious, I'll be serious. If not, you can have a job clipping things."
"No, sir. I'm serious."
"I don't want you to come here in six months and say you're engaged."
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