Barbara Perry
Program Committee
Professor of Governance, University of Virginia, and co-Director of the Presidential Oral History Program
My Story
Barbara's mother took her to see John F. Kennedy when he was running for president in 1960, prompting her lifelong passion for studying JFK. She made the first of many pilgrimages to his birthplace in 1978, a few years before launching her career as a political science professor.
Today Barbara A. Perry is the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center, University of Virginia, where she co-directs the Presidential Oral History Program. She has authored or edited 17 books on presidents, First Ladies, the Kennedy family, the Supreme Court, and civil rights and civil liberties.
Perry has conducted more than 150 interviews for the George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden Presidential Oral History Projects; participated in the Bill Clinton interviews; directs the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project; and co-directed the Hillary Rodham Clinton Oral History Project. She served as a U.S. Supreme Court fellow and has worked for both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate.
Her books include Rose Kennedy: The Life and Times of a Political Matriarch; Jacqueline Kennedy: First Lady of the New Frontier; Edward Kennedy: An Oral History; and Strange Bedfellows: The Political Courtship of Eleanor Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.