How to build a dynasty

Or, the incredible Bridget Kennedy part two

Boston in 1877, about a decade before Bridget Kennedy’s death

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In my last post, I mentioned that I’m currently reading The First Kennedys which explores the famous clan’s first ancestors to come to America. And what’s clear is that Bridget Kennedy — JFK’s great grandmother — faced an absolutely incredible number of obstacles. She lived through famine, intense discrimination and racial violence, a harrowing sea voyage, the loss of many loved ones and so on.

And yet, Kennedy still managed to lay the ground work for what in a relatively short time would become the famous dynasty that bears her name — a dynasty that not only produced many political leaders, but which remains wealthy and powerful even to this day¹.

So what did Kennedy do that created opportunities for future members of her family? Here are some of the highlights from the book:

• She settled in a job center with a diverse economy

  • The Kennedy’s are famously associated with Boston, and that’s thanks to the fact that Bridget Kennedy and her husband Patrick (who died relatively young) both immigrated to the city. But significantly, Bridget kept her family in Boston. Indeed, the book explores how Irish immigrants of the mid 1800s were strongly encouraged, including by the local Irish newspaper, to quickly leave the coast and head inland. Who knows what might have happened if the Kennedys had relocated to the western frontier a la Far and Away². Life in Boston at that time was not easy, but it also meant diverse job opportunities for subsequent Kennedys and, pivotally, the ability for Kennedy’s son to gradually join the political establishment. It’s hard to imagine the same thing happening if they had settled in, say, rural Pennsylvania or Ohio where there was more available land at the time.

    • The lesson: Where you choose to live will either open or close doors for your kids and grandkids down the road.

• She started a business, and that business became a community hub

  • Kennedy’s first years in the US were spent working as a maid. Eventually, however, she started a small grocery store. Many details about this business have been lost, and it’s not even clear if her first venture had an actual name³. But Bridget gradually built it up and author Neal Thompson writes that the shop “would’ve become a casual, communal spot for local gossip and grog”⁴.

    • There are a few lessons here. A) Kennedy knew then what remains true today: It’s difficult to achieve financial stability via wage earning, and many financially successful people got there instead by owning assets and businesses; B) Kennedy chose an occupation that put her in contact with her community. It was a public-facing role and expanded her network; C) in Thompson’s words, Kennedy was a “risk taker”⁵.

• She (seems to have) found a mentor and benefactor

  • In between her time as a maid and housekeeper and her grocery career, Kennedy worked as a hair dresser at Boston department store Jordan Marsh. Working at the store gave Kennedy “a new perspective on how people really lived in the big, historic downtown across from her shaggy island of immigrants.” It also exposed her to store founder Eden Jordan, who started out as a “penniless boy” and went on to become rich. The extent of Kennedys relationship with Jordan is unknown. But based on what we do know about Jordan, Thompson speculates that he “had no doubt been good to” Kennedy. He may have actually helped her launch a business by coaching her and possibly investing money. And “at a minimum,” Kennedy learned from Jordan “what was possible.”⁶.

    • The lesson: Kennedy surrounded herself with people who could teach her how to succeed, and who had charted the type of path that she herself would follow.

• She diversified her income

  • Over time Kennedy’s business grew and she eventually took out leases for buildings adjacent to her home and started renting them out to other family members and new immigrants, making her a landlord. Some members of her family worked for Kennedy, and she also ended up playing the role of “enabler, connector, even matchmaker”⁷. The picture that ultimately emerges from this time is one in which there was a large extended network of family concentrated in one place.

    • The lessons: A) Kennedy branched out into different business ventures (groceries plus real estate); B) She then leveraged her professional success to further build up her family network. It seems safe to speculate that this network would have been an emotional support for Kennedy, but there’s no question it was also a financial asset, as members of the family worked for Kennedy, paid her rent, etc.

• She (seems to have) financed her son’s first business ventures

  • The conventional tale of the Kennedy family usually begins with Bridget’s son PJ, who famously got his start as a saloon owner. Bridget’s own store seems to have given PJ an introduction to the alcohol business. But even more significantly, she may also have provided him with some of the startup money to actually get the saloon up and running⁸.

    • The lesson: When considering PJ, it looks like the myth of the bootstrapping and self-made person once again turns out to be nonsense⁹. PJ’s social and financial successes ultimately far outstripped Bridget’s, but that only happened because Bridget used her resources to open doors for her son.

Unfortunately, many details of Bridget Kennedy’s life have been lost to history. But the information we do have, which again comes from Thompson’s excellent book, shows that she repeatedly made decisions that opened more doors for her kids. And then those kids, most notably PJ, did the same when it was their turn.

What also stands out to me here is that at each stage of her life, Kennedy worked to expand her social network. This is something that appears to be a recurring theme in the lives of successful people, but which I didn’t really critically consider when I was choosing the kind of life I wanted as a young adult. I was told to find a job I liked, for example, and I thought about my ability to support myself. But I didn’t think about — and no one ever suggested I consider — the idea of choosing a career path or a home base that would maximize the size of my social network.

In other words, maybe instead of telling kids “do something you love” (which is bad advice generally), we should be telling them, “do something that’ll give your more connections and more opportunities to find friends.” That’s what Bridget Kennedy appears to have done, and it worked out well for her.

It’s of course worth noting that Kennedy probably wasn’t explicitly trying to build a dynasty that would prosper for centuries, or to choose a career path that maximized her number of friends. Her life was extremely hard, and a lot of what she was doing probably boiled down to simply trying to survive.

But that was true for thousands of Irish immigrants at the time — many of whom shared Bridget’s background and even her name — and she still managed to make a series of smart choices that distinguished her from the pack. She created unique opportunities for her kids and they were materially, quantifiably better off thanks to her choices.

I think that’s a pretty universal urge for parents. Not everyone can or needs to be the Kennedys. But most of us want our kids to have good lives, and lives with even more opportunities than we ourselves enjoyed. I know I do. And Kennedy’s life ultimately shows that parents’ choices make a huge difference when it comes to the kind of lives that are available to their kids.

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Headlines to read this week:

Why falling birthrates may bring chaos to housing

“Years ago, my wife and I moved out of Salt Lake City so I could take a job in Los Angeles. It proved to be a lot of fun. We could see the Hollywood sign from our house. The smell of Thai restaurants wafted over our neighborhood. The neon lights from the taco trucks flickered all night.

But a few years later our California sojourn came to an end when we had our first kid. Suddenly, we needed less nightlife and more space. By the time our daughter was 5 months old, we were in the process of moving back to Salt Lake — where we remain to this day. 

A lot of factors informed our decision. Probably the biggest was that the cost of living, especially housing, was far lower than in California. On top of that, our family had gradually converged on Salt Lake over the years, again in large part due to the area’s affordability compared to other parts of the country. And what we learned from this experience was that housing and families are deeply linked. You can’t talk about one without considering the other.” (This is a shameless plug for a piece I myself wrote.)

1. I mentioned last time that the children of both Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chris Pratt are Kennedys. But there are plenty of other members of the family too. Just a few days ago, for example, I was reading about how another Kennedy heir recently sold his house in the ritzy Pacific Palisades neighborhood of LA. It’s significant that this Kennedy not only owned a house in such an area, but also that the sale of the property was covered by a real estate news website.

2. The movie Far and Away tells the story of two Irish immigrants (played by Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise) who head out to the Wild West. It’s set in the late 1800s, rather than in the middle of the century, but offers an alternative to the urban experience Bridget chose.

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9. Bridget Kennedy herself bootstrapped her way in the world. But it’s also clear that she was positioned within a large constellation of family and community members, and that that constellation contributed to her success. In other words, no one succeeds on their own.