The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty

Journalist Thompson (Hurricane Season) delivers an illuminating look at the earliest years of the Kennedy family in America. Thompson traces the family’s U.S. roots back to Bridget Murphy (c. 1825–1888), who left Ireland for Boston in the late 1840s and found work as a servant before marrying fellow countryman Patrick Kennedy. They had five children before Patrick died of consumption in 1858. Instead of returning to domestic service, Murphy became “a proper wage earner, an entrepreneur, and even a landlord, at a time when most women needed a husband’s permission and a special license to open a business.” The skills she acquired—and the money she lent him—benefited her only surviving son, P.J., whose career as a saloon owner, liquor importer, and Democratic party boss made him “one of the wealthiest and most influential men on the island of East Boston.” P.J.’s successes paved the way, in turn, for his son, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., to make his fortune as an investor and film producer and help establish the political careers of his sons John, Robert, and Ted. Thompson is especially good at evoking the hardships Murphy endured and placing them in the context of the 19th-century Irish experience. The result is an engrossing, real-life rags-to-riches tale. (Feb.)