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.