Between 1960 and 1962, most network documentaries focused on major public issues such as foreign policy, civil rights, and national politics. These domains were overwhelmingly dominated by men, and the programs were exclusively hosted by male journalists. Yet historians of the period have shown that many American women were beginning to express dissatisfaction with their domestic roles and their limited access to public life. Not only did women's magazines of this period discuss such concerns, but readers seemed fascinated by feature articles about women who played prominent roles in public life. Jacqueline Kennedy was an especially intriguing figure as she accompanied her husband on diplomatic expeditions and was seen chatting with French President De Gaulle, toasting with Khrushchev, and delivering speeches in Spanish to enthusiastic crowds in Latin America. She even jetted off to India on her own for a quasi-official goodwill visit. She quickly became a significant public figure in the popular media, her every move closely followed by millions of American women.

Consequently, Jacqueline Kennedy's campaign to redecorate the White House with authentic furnishings and period pieces drew extensive coverage. Taking the lead in fund-raising and planning, she achieved her goals in a little over a year, and, as the project neared completion, she acceded to requests from the networks for a televised tour of the residence. It was agreed that CBS producer Perry Wolff, Hollywood feature-film director Franklin Schaffner, and CBS correspondent Charles Collingwood would play leading roles in organizing the program, but that the three networks would share the costs and each would be allowed to broadcast the finished documentary. The weekend before the videotaping, nine tons of equipment were put in place by 54 technicians, and cut-away segments were taped in advance. The segments featuring Jacqueline Kennedy were recorded during an eight-hour session on the following Monday.

     The final product, though awkward in some regards, effectively represents changing attitudes about the public and private roles of American women. On the one hand, here was Jacqueline Kennedy fulfilling her domestic duty by providing visitors with a tour of her home. On the other hand, she also was performing a public duty as the authoritative voice of the documentary: providing details on her renovation efforts, informing the audience about the historical significance of various furnishings, and even assuming the position of voice-over narrator during extended passages of the program. In fact, this was the first prime-time documentary from the period in which a woman narrated large segments of the text. Her authoritative status is further accentuated  by her position at the center of the screen. This framing  is striking  in  retrospect because correspondent Charles Collingwood, who "escorts" Mrs. Kennedy  from  room  to room, repeatedly walks out of  the frame, leaving her alone  to deliver descriptions of  White  House decor  and  its national signifi­cance. Only at the very end of the program, when President Kennedy "drops in" for a brief interview, is Jacqueline repositioned in a subordinate role as wife and mother. Sitting quietly as the two men talk, she listens attentively while her husband hails her restoration efforts as a significant contribution to public awareness of the nation's heritage.

     The ambiguities at work in this program seem to be linked to widespread ambivalence about the social status of the American woman at the time of this broadcast. Jacqueline Kennedy takes a national audience on a tour of her home, which is at once a private and public space. It  is her family's dwelling,  but also a representation  of  the  nation's home. Furthermore, she is  presented both as a mother-indeed, the national sym­bol of motherhood-and as a modern  woman: a patron of  the arts, a historic  preservationist, and  a key figure in producing the nation's collective memory. In these respects, she might be seen as symbolic of female aspirations to enter the public sphere, and this may help to explain the documentary's popularity with female viewers.

     The White House tour was soon joined by a number of similar productions, each of which drew prime-time audiences as large as those for fictional entertainment. For example, The World of Sophia Loren and The World of Jacqueline Kennedy each drew a third of the nightly audience, while Elizabeth Taylor's London drew close to half. In general, elite television critics reviewed these programs skeptically. noting that entertainment values were privileged at the expense of a more critical assessment of their subject matter. Yet the appeal of these programs may have had less to do with the dichotomy between entertainment and information per se than with the way in which they tapped into women's fantasies about living a more public life while largely maintaining their conventional feminine attributes. As numerous feminist scholars have argued, one of the fundamental appeals of television programming is the opportunity it affords for the viewer to fantasize about situations and identities that are not part of one’s everyday existence. In the early 1960s, such fantasies may have been important not only for women who chafed at the constraints of domesticity. but also for women who were imagining new possibilities.