Bibliograph

Eunice, the Kennedy who changed the world, Eileen McNamara

Type

Label

Eunice, the Kennedy who changed the world, Eileen McNamara

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages [305]-353) and index

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

platesillustrationsgenealogical tables

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

Eunice

Nature of contents

bibliography

Responsibility statement

Eileen McNamara

Sub title

the Kennedy who changed the world

Summary

Examines the life of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, covering her Stanford education, her inspirational relationship with her sister Rosemary, her advocacy on behalf of disabled citizens, and her role as founder of the Special Olympics"While Joe Kennedy was grooming his sons for the White House and the Senate, his Stanford-educated daughter, Eunice was hijacking her father's fortune and her brothers' political power to engineer one of the great civil rights movements of our time. Eunice Kennedy Shriver is the reason we no longer lock away children and adults with intellectual disabilities--that we educate them, employ them, and help them thrive. Her compassion was born of rage: at the medical establishment that had had no answers for her sister Rosemary, at her revered but dismissive father, whose vision for his family did not extend beyond his sons, and at a government that failed to deliver on America's promise of equality. In [this book], Pulitzer Prize-winner Eileen McNamara brings Eunice Kennedy Shriver out from her brothers' shadows to reveal an officious, cigar-smoking, fast-driving, indefatigable woman who was a shrewd player in the careers of lack, Bobby, and Ted, a complicated wife to Sargent, an oft-neglected daughter of Rose, and a fiercely devoted but emotionally aloof mother to her five children. Granted access to never-before-seen private papers, including the scrapbooks Eunice kept as a schoolgirl in prewar London, McNamara paints an extraordinary portrait of a woman both ahead of her time and out of step with it: the visionary founder of Special Olympics, a devout Catholic in a secular age, and a formidable woman whose impact on American society was longer-lasting than that of any of the Kennedy men."--Dust jacket

Table Of Contents

Part one. In her parents' image. The middle child ; London ; From the Sacred Heart to Stanford University ; Dollar-a-year girl -- Part two. In her brothers' shadows. Juvenile delinquency ; Women in prison ; Chicago ; Consultant to the president -- Part three: In her own right. From Camp Shriver to Special Olympics ; An American in Paris ; Maternal feminism ; Protecting the present, seeding the future -- Epilogue

Classification