John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Essay by Anonymous User, High School, 10th grade, A+, January 1996

download word file, 3 pages ( 6 KB ) 3.5

This essay is just a basic outline of JFK -

A. Family and Educational Background

                 John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born of May 29, 1917 and was the second son of nine children of

        Joseph Patrick Kennedy and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy. The ancestors before him were of

        Wexford County in Ireland. John F. Kennedy's father served as first chairman of the

        Securities and Exchange Commission and a US ambassador to Great Britain during Franklin D.

        Roosevelts administration. His mother was the daughter of John F. Fitzgerald who was also

        a political figure.

                 John F. Kennedy attended elementary schools in Brookline and Riverdale,

        Massachusetts until the age of thirteen. After that, he was sent to the Canterbury School

        in New Milford, Connecticut. Later, he transferred to the Choate Academy in Wallingford,

        Connecticut and graduated at eighteen. For a short period of time, he attended he

        attended college at Princeton but left because he had developed a case of jaundice. In

        1936, he enrolled in Harvard and majored in international relations and in government.

        After graduating in 1940, he enrolled in the Stanford University graduate business school

        and dropped out six months later. Soon after, he joined the navy.

B. Political Background

                 Kennedy ran for the US House of Representatives in 1946 and took his seat in

        Congress in 1947 and was reelected two more times in 1948 and in 1950. In 1952, with help

        from his family, Kennedy campaigned for the Senate and won. In June of 1956, Kennedy ran

        for Vice President only to lose to Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. After his loss, Kennedy

        began a new campaign for the Presidency.

C. Presidential Elections

                 Kennedy's running mates for the Presidency in 1960 were Richard Nixon and Harry Byrd.

        One of the major issues being debated at the...