Paris, Mon Amour—Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at Reid Hall

By
Sabina Lee
June 24, 2019

In the summer of 1949, a Vassar College student named Jacqueline Bouvier arrived in Paris for a year abroad, eager to study the French language and culture.

“I learned not to be ashamed of a real hunger for knowledge, something I had always tried to hide,” she recalled in 1951 of this formative time, which she also described as her “happiest year,” according to a recent article published in The New York Times.

Paris inspired and transformed young Jacqueline, who would later become First Lady of the United States during the presidency of her first husband, John F. Kennedy. She lived with a host family and studied art history and literature at Reid Hall, now home to Columbia Global Centers | Paris, part of a network of educational outposts in nine cities around the world. Today, Reid Hall, along with Columbia’s Institute for Ideas and Imagination, remains a central Parisian hub of American and French academic exchange and offers year-round public lectures and seminars. It also houses the Columbia University Undergraduate Programs in Paris, which date back to 1966 and are the first-choice destination for students who wish to study abroad.