Joseph P. Kennedy

Joseph Patrick Kennedy was born on September 6, 1888, in a house on Webster Street in East Boston, Boston, MassachusettsMassachusettsMassachusetts (officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts) is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States; its capital and largest city is Boston. One of the original 13 states, it ratified the U.S. Constitution on February 6, 1788, the sixth state to do so. Its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 7,029,917.Open the full entry, the first of the three surviving children of Patrick Joseph “P.J.” Kennedy (1858–1929) and Mary Augusta Hickey (1857–1923).⁠[1][1][2]

P.J. Kennedy rose from laborer to businessman, helped organize the Columbia Trust Company and the Sumner Savings Bank, served in the Massachusetts House and Senate, and for more than thirty years was an influential unofficial “ward boss” in East Boston’s Ward 2.⁠[3]

He attended the Catholic Assumption School and then the Xaverian School, and from 1901 to 1908 studied at Boston Latin School, a college-preparatory school in the Boston public school system, where he was elected class president in his senior year and was active in baseball and other extracurricular activities.⁠[1][3]

He entered Harvard College at Harvard UniversityHarvard UniversityHarvard University is a private research university in Massachusetts, established by the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature in 1636 and named in 1639 for early benefactor John Harvard. Its principal campuses are in Cambridge and the Allston and Longwood neighborhoods of Boston. It includes Harvard College, graduate and professional schools, and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Two governing boards share oversight. Alan M. Garber was president as of October 2026, and the endowment stood at $56.9 billion at the end of fiscal 2025.Open the full entry in 1908 and received his B.A. in 1912.⁠[1][3]

In the fall of 1912 he became an assistant state bank examiner for Massachusetts, earning $1,500 a year.⁠[3][2]

He bought a controlling interest in the struggling Columbia Trust Company, his father’s bank, and became its president on January 20, 1914, at the age of 25, regarded as one of the youngest bank presidents in the country.⁠[1][3][2]

On October 7, 1914, he married Rose Elizabeth Fitzgerald, daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, in the private chapel of Cardinal William O’Connell in Boston, with the cardinal officiating.⁠[1][3]

The couple settled at 83 Beals Street in Brookline, Massachusetts, later the birthplace of John F. KennedyJohn F. KennedyJohn F. Kennedy (1917–1963) was an American politician who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate and served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 to 1963. The youngest person elected president and the first Roman Catholic to hold the office, he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963.Open the full entry and now operated as the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site. Around 1920 the family moved to a larger home in Brookline.⁠[2]

In 1917 he was elected a trustee of the Massachusetts Electric Company. That year, recommended by board member Guy Currier to Bethlehem Steel chief Charles M. Schwab, he became assistant general manager of Bethlehem Steel’s Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts, where during World War I he first met Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. RooseveltFranklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) was an American politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, the only president elected four times; he led the country through the Great Depression and World War II and greatly expanded the federal government’s role through the New Deal.Open the full entry.⁠[3][1][2]

After the war he moved into finance. In June 1919 he became manager of the Boston office of the investment bank Hayden, Stone and Company, where he learned the stock market from Galen Stone and invested his own capital. When Stone retired in early 1923, he set up his own firm as “Joseph P. Kennedy, Banker” and over the next three years built a net worth of about $2 million.⁠[1][3]

He bought the MaineMaineMaine is a state in the northeastern United States, bordered by Canada and New Hampshire; its capital is Augusta and its largest city is Portland. It entered the Union on March 15, 1820, as the 23rd state, and had a population of 1,362,359 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry and New Hampshire Theatres Company, a small New England movie-house chain, in 1919 and then turned to film production. In February 1926 he bought Film Booking Offices of America (FBO), created the Cinema Credits Corporation and moved his family from Boston to Riverdale in New York City. That year he arranged a series of lectures on film history at Harvard, later published as a book, and gave Harvard a donation to establish a film library.⁠[3][1]

In the fall of 1927 he joined with David Sarnoff of RCA, and FBO bought the Keith-Albee-Orpheum theater chain to show films made with RCA’s Photophone sound system; in 1928 he headed four companies at once, and late that year the holding company Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) was formed as an RCA subsidiary. He also produced independent films and from late 1927 managed the finances of actress Gloria Swanson through Gloria Productions; their films included her first talkie, The Trespasser, before the partnership ended in 1930.⁠[3]

Before the October 1929 crash he had sold most of his stock holdings. In 1930 he sold Pathé to RKO and left the film business with an estimated fortune of $5 million.⁠[3][1]

During the Depression he left the Republicans to support Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election, riding on Roosevelt’s campaign train. In 1933 he traveled to Europe with James Roosevelt and became the U.S. agent for several British liquor brands, positioning his company Somerset Importers for the end of Prohibition under the Twenty-first Amendment.⁠[3][1]

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission was created under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. On June 30, 1934, Roosevelt appointed the first five commissioners and insisted that Kennedy be chairman; he served as commissioner and chairman from July 2, 1934, alongside the other original commissioners George C. Mathews, James M. Landis, Robert E. Healy and Ferdinand Pecora.⁠[4][5][6]

The appointment drew criticism because of his past as a speculator; Jerome Frank compared it to “setting a wolf to guard a flock of sheep.” In office he called the commission the “partner of honest capital,” favored regulation through disclosure and expected the exchanges to police themselves, and early enforcement was light; the SEC Historical Society’s exhibit judges that capital markets had revived by the spring of 1935.⁠[5][4][3]

He left office on September 23, 1935, before the end of his five-year term, after 431 days at the commission; James M. Landis succeeded him as chairman.⁠[6][7][3]

From late 1935 through 1936 he worked as a consultant: after touring Europe in the fall of 1935 he wrote a report on the European economy, advised David Sarnoff at RCA and reviewed the business of Paramount Pictures. In 1936 he published I’m for Roosevelt, written with The New York Times columnist Arthur Krock, urging businessmen to support Roosevelt and the New Deal.⁠[3]

After Roosevelt’s reelection he became chairman of the United States Maritime Commission, created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, on April 19, 1937; he served for about ten months and resigned in February 1938.⁠[1][3]

In December 1937 Roosevelt named him ambassador to the Court of St. James’s. A non-career appointee, he was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the United Kingdom on January 17, 1938, and presented his credentials on March 8, 1938.⁠[3][8]

The JFK Library’s biography judges that he was initially popular in Britain, but his support for appeasement, his opposition to war and, after war broke out in 1939, his advocacy of neutrality put him at odds with the British government and eventually with his own. He left his post on October 22, 1940, and resigned in November 1940.⁠[3][8]

After World War II he sold Somerset Importers and turned to real estate, buying and renovating the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, which became a cornerstone of his wealth. In 1946 he founded the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation, a philanthropy named for his eldest son. In 1957 Fortune estimated his fortune at $200 million to $400 million, placing him among the 16 richest Americans.⁠[3][1][2]

On December 19, 1961, he suffered a stroke at his home in Palm Beach, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, which paralyzed his right side and left him barely able to speak.⁠[1][3]

He died at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, on November 18, 1969, aged 81. A private funeral was held at a Catholic church in Hyannis with Cardinal Cushing officiating, and he was buried at Holyhood Cemetery in Brookline.⁠[3][1]

He and Rose Fitzgerald had nine children: Joseph Jr. (1915–1944), John (1917–1963), Rosemary (1918–2005), Kathleen (1920–1948), Eunice (1921–2009), Patricia (1924–2006), Robert (1925–1968), Jean (1928–2020) and Edward (1932–2009).⁠[1]

In 1946 he encouraged his son John F. Kennedy to run for Massachusetts’ 11th congressional district; John F. Kennedy won and went on to serve in the House and the Senate before being elected president in 1960. He also advanced the careers of his sons Robert F. KennedyRobert F. KennedyRobert F. Kennedy (1925–1968) was an American politician and lawyer, a Democrat who served as U.S. attorney general and as a U.S. senator from New York; he was assassinated in Los Angeles in 1968 while seeking the Democratic presidential nomination.Open the full entry and Edward Moore Kennedy (Ted KennedyTed KennedyTed Kennedy (Edward M. Kennedy, 1932–2009) was an American politician and Democrat who served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts from 1962 to 2009, leading or helping to pass legislation on civil rights, immigration, health care, education and disability rights.Open the full entry), both of whom became U.S. senators.⁠[3]

His eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., a Navy pilot in World War II, was killed on August 12, 1944, when his explosive-laden plane blew up over southeast England during a top-secret bombing mission.⁠[3]

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission: Official website: https://www.sec.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[6]

Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: Official website: https://history.state.gov/ (opens in a new window).⁠[8]

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum: Official website: https://www.jfklibrary.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[3]