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The Bouviers: From Waterloo to the Kennedys and Beyond
The first cousin of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis uncovers the family secrets that contributed to the evolution of Jackie O. By the author of The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster.
406 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 17, 2023
This is an absolutely fascinating family biography that takes its readers from Napoleon-era France to Philadelphia in the early 1800s and all the way to the White House. The Bouviers are a fascinating French family who were skilled artisans making very detailed furniture in France for generations. When Michel Bouvier was forced to flee France to avoid execution for serving Napoleon, he traveled to Philadelphia and supported himself the only way he knew how - through making beautiful handmade furniture. But of the course of his life, he moved from hand production to furniture manufacturing and eventually to real estate. He died a wealthy man, leaving a fortune to his ten children and having seen his daughters married to millionaires. Many of his daughters were incredibly religious and philanthropic, donating millions to progressive civil rights movement causes. His only male descendent, while far more spendthrift than prior generations of the family, continued the line. And it was his son, "Black Jack" Bouvier, who was the father of unquestionably the most famous member of the family, Jacqueline Bouvier, who became the first lady of the United States of America thanks to her husband John F. Kennedy.
I loved family biographies and this one was a particularly fascinating one. Even had Jackie Kennedy not been a part of this family, this is a fascinating read. In fact, my favorite sections of the book are the earlier chapters that cover the family's rise to great wealth in America. The family is full of fascinating characters and shocking plot twists. I found this book just as thrilling as any novel.
One element that helped make this book great was the fact that the author is a Bouvier. He is a first cousin of Jackie Kennedy, and like Jackie, grew up spending lots of time with his grandfather at the Bouvier country estate of Lasata. Not only did his position as a family member mean that he had exclusive access to many family documents, letters, and photographs, but he also was able to add his vivid members and descriptions of the family members and homes when the book got to the sections that covered his lifetime. I felt like I was there at the family luncheon with him, Jackie, and all the other cousins and aunts and uncles reading his vivid description. Yet he also seems able to hold himself back and present his family honestly and without embellishment, something his grandfather was unable to do.
Perhaps understandably, the final section of the book is really all about Jackie and the family's peak having a family member in the White House. While interesting, I do wish the author had spent a little more time detailing the other members of the family, other than a very brief summary. But perhaps this was a complicated issue since his cousins were all alive at the time of publication.
I loved this book so much. I enjoyed it so immensely and am so grateful to the author for taking the time to present such a comprehensive, well-researched but also personally informed portrait of his family.
4.5 stars
I loved family biographies and this one was a particularly fascinating one. Even had Jackie Kennedy not been a part of this family, this is a fascinating read. In fact, my favorite sections of the book are the earlier chapters that cover the family's rise to great wealth in America. The family is full of fascinating characters and shocking plot twists. I found this book just as thrilling as any novel.
One element that helped make this book great was the fact that the author is a Bouvier. He is a first cousin of Jackie Kennedy, and like Jackie, grew up spending lots of time with his grandfather at the Bouvier country estate of Lasata. Not only did his position as a family member mean that he had exclusive access to many family documents, letters, and photographs, but he also was able to add his vivid members and descriptions of the family members and homes when the book got to the sections that covered his lifetime. I felt like I was there at the family luncheon with him, Jackie, and all the other cousins and aunts and uncles reading his vivid description. Yet he also seems able to hold himself back and present his family honestly and without embellishment, something his grandfather was unable to do.
Perhaps understandably, the final section of the book is really all about Jackie and the family's peak having a family member in the White House. While interesting, I do wish the author had spent a little more time detailing the other members of the family, other than a very brief summary. But perhaps this was a complicated issue since his cousins were all alive at the time of publication.
I loved this book so much. I enjoyed it so immensely and am so grateful to the author for taking the time to present such a comprehensive, well-researched but also personally informed portrait of his family.
4.5 stars
April 1, 2014
Honestly, this was an amazing read. A Must Read. The fact that history of Jacqueline Kennedy has Philadelphia roots is fabulous!
April 2, 2023
Saw this for book for sale for a song, and because of the Philadelphia and New York connections, thought it would be worth a read.
The book's narrative starts in France in the early 19th century, in Pont-Saint-Esprit, in Provence. The titular head of the family, Michel Bouvier, after fighting with Napoleon's forces, leaves for America, which at the time meant to its premier city, Philadelphia. Trained as a cabinetmaker, that's what he does in Philadelphia, eventually finding some success, nabbing prestigious clients like associated French emigres Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard, and ultimately making a fortune through real estate. The family's footprint in Philadelphia is meager, some tombs at Old St. Mary's in Society Hill, a Bouvier Street, the memory of a mansion on North Broad Street, and some remaining residential and chapel buildings in the then suburb of Torresdale. (See my previous review of Agnes Repplier's recollections of being educated at Eden Hall, in Torresdale, which was also the residence of a Michel Bouvier daughter, Louise, who became a Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the order who ran that girls' academy.)
After New York eclipsed Philadelphia as a wealthier and faster growing commercial metropolis in the mid nineteenth century, the Bouviers largely relocated to Gotham, many of the men becoming lawyers and Wall Street financiers/stock brokers, and setting up homesteads in midtown and the Upper East Side. One of my favorite paragraphs from the book summarizes the reasoning behind moving from Philadelphia to New York:
"...by 1840, Philadelphia's upper class had become a closed corporation, an elite that would not admit anyone whose roots did not extend deep into the eighteenth century -- which of course had been the era of Philadelphia supremacy. As Nathaniel Burt expressed it: "Let vulgar Washington take over politics, and vulgar New York take over finance.. let even schoolmarmish Boston be first in books. Philadelphia would no longer be first in anything, but it would at least be Philadelphian." And being Philadelphian meant, among other things, closing the social doors to anyone whose family had not been prominent in Philadelphia when Philadelphia was first in politics, finance and books."
Thus the Bouvier brothers, John and MC (Michel Charles) moved from Philadelphia, though the patriarch Michel remained there. And while in New York, summering in East Hampton was de rigueur for those of a certain income/class/aspiration, and Bouvier summer estates with names like Lasata and Grey Gardens were established. The comings and goings of the families who married in to the Bouvier clan provide interesting new blood to the story line, though part of the interest for me is the success story of a Franco-Catholic family in an Anglo Saxon WASP society. But then it all changes when one of the Bouvier namesakes becomes First Lady of the United States, and much of the last third of the book is about Jacqueline and her father, sister, mother (not so much about the kids, as the book was written in 1969)(by another Bouvier, Jack Davis, cousin to Jackie, as his mother was sister to her father) and of course her time as a Kennedy and America's ersatz queen. Again, interesting to read of Jackie's "three families", the Bouviers, the Lees and the Auchinclosses at her Kennedy wedding (and funeral), those of her father, mother and stepfather - complexity veering on contradiction.
In the end, some tedious portions that are dangerously close to sentimental/nostalgic reminiscences, and an unrelenting and nearly racist characterization of the Bouvier Provencal heritage accounting for their swarthiness and Latin loucheness, but overall an interesting glimpse into a family dynasty that ebbed and flowed over two centuries in America, and, also interestingly, returned to Europe in the late-twentieth century, where it seems to be changing, but growing, still.
The book's narrative starts in France in the early 19th century, in Pont-Saint-Esprit, in Provence. The titular head of the family, Michel Bouvier, after fighting with Napoleon's forces, leaves for America, which at the time meant to its premier city, Philadelphia. Trained as a cabinetmaker, that's what he does in Philadelphia, eventually finding some success, nabbing prestigious clients like associated French emigres Joseph Bonaparte and Stephen Girard, and ultimately making a fortune through real estate. The family's footprint in Philadelphia is meager, some tombs at Old St. Mary's in Society Hill, a Bouvier Street, the memory of a mansion on North Broad Street, and some remaining residential and chapel buildings in the then suburb of Torresdale. (See my previous review of Agnes Repplier's recollections of being educated at Eden Hall, in Torresdale, which was also the residence of a Michel Bouvier daughter, Louise, who became a Mother Superior of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, the order who ran that girls' academy.)
After New York eclipsed Philadelphia as a wealthier and faster growing commercial metropolis in the mid nineteenth century, the Bouviers largely relocated to Gotham, many of the men becoming lawyers and Wall Street financiers/stock brokers, and setting up homesteads in midtown and the Upper East Side. One of my favorite paragraphs from the book summarizes the reasoning behind moving from Philadelphia to New York:
"...by 1840, Philadelphia's upper class had become a closed corporation, an elite that would not admit anyone whose roots did not extend deep into the eighteenth century -- which of course had been the era of Philadelphia supremacy. As Nathaniel Burt expressed it: "Let vulgar Washington take over politics, and vulgar New York take over finance.. let even schoolmarmish Boston be first in books. Philadelphia would no longer be first in anything, but it would at least be Philadelphian." And being Philadelphian meant, among other things, closing the social doors to anyone whose family had not been prominent in Philadelphia when Philadelphia was first in politics, finance and books."
Thus the Bouvier brothers, John and MC (Michel Charles) moved from Philadelphia, though the patriarch Michel remained there. And while in New York, summering in East Hampton was de rigueur for those of a certain income/class/aspiration, and Bouvier summer estates with names like Lasata and Grey Gardens were established. The comings and goings of the families who married in to the Bouvier clan provide interesting new blood to the story line, though part of the interest for me is the success story of a Franco-Catholic family in an Anglo Saxon WASP society. But then it all changes when one of the Bouvier namesakes becomes First Lady of the United States, and much of the last third of the book is about Jacqueline and her father, sister, mother (not so much about the kids, as the book was written in 1969)(by another Bouvier, Jack Davis, cousin to Jackie, as his mother was sister to her father) and of course her time as a Kennedy and America's ersatz queen. Again, interesting to read of Jackie's "three families", the Bouviers, the Lees and the Auchinclosses at her Kennedy wedding (and funeral), those of her father, mother and stepfather - complexity veering on contradiction.
In the end, some tedious portions that are dangerously close to sentimental/nostalgic reminiscences, and an unrelenting and nearly racist characterization of the Bouvier Provencal heritage accounting for their swarthiness and Latin loucheness, but overall an interesting glimpse into a family dynasty that ebbed and flowed over two centuries in America, and, also interestingly, returned to Europe in the late-twentieth century, where it seems to be changing, but growing, still.
February 6, 2023
I read this because I'm a superfan of Grey Gardens, and I was hoping for insight into Big and Little Edie Bouvier Beales' lives. There's definitely some fun references to tie to the film, like how Little Edie mentions the convent school she went to, that was a school her ancestor founded. The Bouviers were very Catholic. It's also really interesting to read about how the first Bouvier came to the US penniless, through ingratiating himself with Napoleon's relative (Bouvier fought for Napoleon) he was able to make himself a millionaire. And then the next generation added to the millions, but the third gen is when it all started to go downhill. A fascinating look at how wealth is made and lost in America.
I do need to mention that while I think mostly John H. Davis makes a fair assessment, Davis is also a Bouvier, so it's clear he's not totally unbiased.
I do need to mention that while I think mostly John H. Davis makes a fair assessment, Davis is also a Bouvier, so it's clear he's not totally unbiased.
November 16, 2024
What a great book
March 30, 2017
Quite interesting book about an overrated family of questionable characters. Skipped the lineage down to Major Jack Bouvier Sr., father of Jack Jr. and granddad to Jack III (Jackie's father), Bud, Edith, and the girl twins, one of whom, Maude, is the mother of the author. Jack III was the lothario, Bud the hopeful hero who died a drunk, creating great remorse in the family. Edith grew up cultivating her voice and appearance and never had to lift a finger to do anything else. Married Phelan, biz partner of her dad, who separated from her in 1934 and divorced her in 46. The author portrays his mom and aunt as the angels of the saga and focuses the story a great deal on Jack III because of Jackie's popularity when the book was published (1969). Vivid and lucid descriptions of World War I (Bud fought in Europe) and how its end drastically changed morals and styles in the '20s - much the way the internet changed things here at the end of the century. Closeup of how the family's bank accounts fluctuated during the 1929 crash and depression.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 29, 2021
I couldn’t put this book down, if for nothing else because it was a masterpiece in genealogical work. Wonderfully researched, and the biographical sketches of each generation were great reading.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews