The First Kennedys: The Humble Roots of an American Dynasty Hardcover – February 22, 2022 by Neal Thompson

Description

Author: Thompson Neal

Package Dimensions: 0x229x454

Number Of Pages: 352

Release Date: 22-02-2022

Details: Product Description

Based on genealogical breakthroughs and previously unreleased records, this is the first book to explore the inspiring story of the poor Irish refugee couple who escaped famine, created a life together in a city hostile to Irish, immigrants, and Catholics, and launched the Kennedy dynasty in America.

Their Irish ancestry was a hallmark of the Kennedys’ initial political profile, as JFK leveraged his working-class roots to connect with blue-collar voters. Today, we remember this iconic American family as the vanguard of wealth, power, and style rather than as the descendants of poor immigrants. Here at last, we meet the first American Kennedys, Patrick and Bridget, who arrived as many thousands of others did following the Great Famine—penniless and hungry. Less than a decade after their marriage in Boston, Patrick’s sudden death left Bridget to raise their children single-handedly. Her rise from housemaid to shop owner in the face of rampant poverty and discrimination kept her family intact, allowing her only son P.J. to become a successful saloon owner and businessman. P.J. went on to become the first American Kennedy elected to public office—the first of many.

Written by the grandson of an Irish immigrant couple and based on first-ever access to P.J. Kennedy’s private papers,
The First Kennedys is a story of sacrifice and survival, resistance and reinvention: an American story.

Review
“An engrossing, real-life rags-to-riches tale.”—
Publishers Weekly

“Here is that rare thing: an untold chapter in the Kennedy saga. Neal Thompson has given us a compelling and illuminating book about one of the most important families in our history—a family that represents so much about America then. And now.”
—Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize winner and #1
New York Times best-selling author of
Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

“Here is the chaos, claustrophobia, tragedy, and triumph of immigrant America told through one city and one iconic family. Just when you thought you knew everything there was to know about the Kennedys, along comes Neal Thompson with this brilliant re-creation of the Irish diaspora succeeding in a city that for many years would not allow them to be part of the American story. It’s great storytelling.”
—Timothy Egan, Pulitzer Prize winner and
New York Times best-selling author of
The Immortal Irishman

“To understand the unforgettable stories of Jack and Bobby, Eunice, Ted, and the rest of their celebrated generation of Kennedys, we have to understand the stories of their extraordinary great-grandparents and grandparents. Now, thanks to Neal Thompson, we can. Read all about it in
The First Kennedys.”
—Larry Tye, author of
Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon

“A fresh, engrossing, and profoundly relatable look at a family that everyone thinks they know. Crafting a saga elevated by dogged research and transporting prose, Neal Thompson casts the humble beginnings of an American dynasty into surprising and penetrating light. Unforgettable.”
—Denise Kiernan,
New York Times best-selling author of
The Last Castle and
The Girls of Atomic City

“Neal Thompson’s
The First Kennedys is a riveting, beautifully written story and an important addition to our ongoing fascination with America’s royal family. With captivating prose and breathtaking research, Thompson takes us on a remarkable journey from the blight-infested potato fields of Ireland to the unwelcoming, hardscrabble wharves and disease-ridden tenements of 1840s East Boston, where Bridget Murphy and Patrick Kennedy arrived to stake a claim to a new life. They joined millions of Irish immigrants who were at once reviled—white native-born Americans called them “maggots,” “vicious,” and “wretched”—but who also provided the desperately needed cheap labor for an expanding nation. The real hero of the story is Bridget—strong-willed, smart, and determined—who survived widowhood and climbed her way out of certain po