Kennedy, Joseph P(atrick)

Kennedy, Joseph P(atrick) (1888-1969), American businessman and government official. Born in Boston, the son of a local politician and small businessman, he studied at Harvard University. By the age of 30 he had amassed a fortune through business ventures that included films, shipbuilding, and real estate, and through stock-market speculation (using practices that he outlawed in 1934-1935, as the first chairman of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission). He was a crucial supporter of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, 1936, and 1940. As chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission (1937) he laid the groundwork for the US merchant marine. He was ambassador to Great Britain from 1938 to 1940, where he advised Roosevelt against joining in World War II, believing the Germans would imminently defeat Britain. His wife, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, was the daughter of John Francis Fitzgerald, who was twice mayor of Boston. Of their nine children, the oldest, Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Jr., was killed in combat in World War II; John F. Kennedy was 35th president of the United States; Robert F. Kennedy was a prominent US senator and US Attorney-General; and Edward M. Kennedy is a noted US senator.