Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. (September 6, 1888 – November 18, 1969) was an American businessman, investor, philanthropist, and politician. Known for his own political prominence as well as that of his children, he was the patriarch of the Kennedy family.

Kennedy was born into a political family in East Boston, Massachusetts. After making a large fortune as a stock and commodity market investor, he invested in the film industry, real estate and other lines of business. During World War I, he was an assistant general manager of a Boston area Bethlehem Steel shipyard; through that position, he became acquainted with Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. In the 1920s, Kennedy made huge profits by reorganizing and refinancing several Hollywood studios; several acquisitions were ultimately merged into Radio-Keith-Orpheum (RKO) studios. Kennedy increased his fortune with distribution rights for Scotch whisky. He owned the largest privately owned building in the country, Chicago's Merchandise Mart.

Kennedy was a leading member of the Democratic Party and of the Irish Catholic community. President Roosevelt appointed Kennedy to be the first chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which he led from 1934 to 1935. Kennedy later directed the United States Maritime Commission. He served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to late 1940. With the outbreak of World War II in September 1939, Kennedy was pessimistic about Britain's ability to survive attacks from Germany. During the Battle of Britain in November 1940, Kennedy publicly suggested, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here [in the United States]." After a controversy regarding this statement, Kennedy resigned his position.

Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald and had nine children. During his later life, he was heavily involved in the political careers of his sons. Three of Kennedy's sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts and as the 35th president of the United States, Robert F. Kennedy served as the U.S. attorney general and as a U.S. senator from New York, and Ted Kennedy was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Kennedy was also the father of Special Olympics founder Eunice Kennedy Shriver and U.S. Ambassador to Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith.

Joseph Patrick Kennedy Sr. was born on September 6, 1888, at 151 Meridian Street in East Boston, Massachusetts. Kennedy was the elder son of Mary Augusta (née Hickey) Kennedy and businessman and politician Patrick Joseph "P.J." Kennedy. Kennedy attended Boston Latin School, where he excelled at baseball and was elected class president before graduating in 1908.

Kennedy then attended Harvard College, where he gained admittance to the prestigious Hasty Pudding Club but was not invited to join the Porcellian Club. Kennedy graduated in 1912 with a bachelor's degree in economics.

Kennedy set his future sights on embarking on a business career upon his graduation from Harvard. During his mid-to-late 20s, he became a bank examiner and commodity and stock investor. He reinvested much of his proceeds into the film industry, real estate, and shipping lines. When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957, it placed Kennedy in the $200–400 million group, equivalent to about $3.2 billion in 2023.

Kennedy's first job after graduating from Harvard was a position as a bank clerk, and later a bank examiner at Columbia Trust Bank. This job allowed him to learn a great deal about the banking industry. In 1913, the Columbia Trust Bank, in which his father held a significant share, was under threat of takeover. Kennedy borrowed $45,000 (equivalent to $1.5 million in 2025) from family and friends and bought back control. At the age of 25, he was rewarded by being elected the bank's president. Kennedy told the press he was "the youngest" bank president in America. In May 1917, Kennedy was elected to the Board of Trustees of the Massachusetts Electric Company, New England's leading public utility at the time.

Although he was skeptical of American involvement in World War I, Kennedy sought to participate in wartime production as an assistant general manager of Fore River, a major Bethlehem Steel shipyard in Quincy, Massachusetts. There, he oversaw the production of transports and warships. Through this job, he became acquainted with Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin D. Roosevelt.

In 1919, Kennedy joined Hayden, Stone & Co., a prominent stock brokerage firm with offices in Boston and New York, where he became an expert dealing in the unregulated stock market of the day, engaging in tactics that were later considered to be insider trading and market manipulation violations. He happened to be on the corner of Wall and Broad Streets at the moment of the Wall Street bombing on September 16, 1920, and was thrown to the ground by the force of the blast. In 1923, he established his own investment company. Kennedy subsequently became a multi-millionaire as a result of taking "short" positions following the 1929 stock market crash.

Kennedy was enlisted in 1924 to help stabilize the stock of John D. Hertz's Yellow Cab Company, a taxi cab operator, against a bear raid; afterward, Hertz suspected Kennedy of carrying out such a raid against the stock himself. In 1933, he helped establish a "stock pool" that bought large quantities of stock in Libbey-Owens-Ford (LOF), an auto-glass manufacturer, and wash-traded huge volumes of stock among themselves while promoting the outright fraud that their company was related to Owens-Illinois, a glassmaker that made bottles which presumably would have profited from the imminent repeal of Prohibition.

In 1932, Kennedy supported Franklin D. Roosevelt in his bid for the presidency. This was his first major involvement in a national political campaign, and he donated, lent, and raised a substantial amount of money for the campaign.

In 1934, Congress established the independent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to end irresponsible market manipulations and dissemination of false information about securities. Roosevelt's brain trust drew up a list of recommended candidates for the SEC chairmanship. Kennedy headed the list, which stated he was "the best bet for Chairman because of executive ability, knowledge of habits and customs of business to be regulated and ability to moderate different points of view on Commission."

In his address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce on November 15, 1934 Kennedy said, "Deplorable loss was the consequence of ill-considered conception, preparation, and execution. We don't want the staccato tempo of much of the frenzied financing of the late twenties." Kennedy continued,

"We have the tremendous task of educating the American public to protect itself against high-pressure salesmanship. No law has ever been devised or administered which successfully eradicated crookedness. The Federal Government, however, hopes to fill a much needed want, hopes to be a vigorous factor in the relentless war on stock frauds."

Kennedy sought out the best lawyers available, giving him a hard-driving team with a mission for reform. Notably, he selected William O. Douglas and Abe Fortas, both of whom were later appointed to the Supreme Court. Douglas eventually became SEC Chairman in 1937. The SEC had four missions. First was to restore investor confidence in the securities market, which had collapsed on account of its questionability, and the external threats supposedly posed by anti-business elements in the Roosevelt administration. Second, the SEC had to get rid of penny-ante swindles based on false information, fraudulent devices, and get-rich-quick schemes. Thirdly, and much more important than the frauds, the SEC had to end the million-dollar maneuvers in major corporations, whereby insiders with access to high-quality information about the company knew when to buy or sell their own securities. A crackdown on insider trading was essential. Finally, the SEC had to set up a complex system of registration for all securities sold in America, with a clear set of rules, deadlines and guidelines that all companies had to follow. The main challenge faced by the young lawyers was drafting precise rules. The SEC succeeded in its four missions, as Kennedy reassured the American business community that they would no longer be deceived and taken advantage of by Wall Street. He trumpeted for ordinary investors to return to the market and enable the economy to grow again. Kennedy's reforming work as SEC Chairman was widely praised on all sides, as investors realized the SEC was protecting their interests. He resigned from the SEC in September 1935.

On October 7, 1914, Kennedy married Rose Fitzgerald, the eldest daughter of Boston Mayor John F. Fitzgerald, in the private chapel of Archbishop William Henry O'Connell in Boston. After a two-week honeymoon, the couple settled at 83 Beals Street in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts.

Joseph and Rose Kennedy had nine children: Joseph Jr. (1915–1944), John (1917–1963), Rose Marie "Rosemary" (1918–2005), Kathleen (1920–1948), Eunice (1921–2009), Patricia (1924–2006), Robert (1925–1968), Jean (1928–2020), and Edward (1932–2009). Three of the Kennedys' sons attained distinguished political positions: John F. Kennedy served as a U.S. representative from Massachusetts (1947–1953), a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1953–1960), and as 35th president of the United States (1961–1963); Robert F. Kennedy served as U.S. attorney general (1961–1964) and as a U.S. senator from New York (1965–1968); and Edward M. Kennedy served as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1962–2009). One of the Kennedys' daughters, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founded the Special Olympics for disabled people, while another, Jean Kennedy Smith, served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland.