Rosalynn Carter: Do What You Can To Show You Care About Others, and You Will Make Our World a Better Place
Biography of Rosalynn Carter
"Do what you can to show you care about others, and you will make our world a better place."
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter’s marriage to Jimmy Carter took her from a rural farming community to the White House. Showing the world a new vision of the First Lady, Mrs. Carter was a working partner and trusted advisor to the president, a participant in foreign and domestic affairs, and an astute political strategist. Widely recognized as the nation’s foremost advocate for mental health, she was actively devoted to building a more caring society.
The White House Years
While assuming the traditional demands of presidential wife and official White House hostess, Mrs. Carter worked tirelessly to create what she described as “a more caring society.” She was the first presidential spouse to carry a briefcase to a White House office on a daily basis. As a result of her singular tenacity and southern gentleness, she was dubbed the “steel magnolia.”
Early in 1977, barred by statute from being chair of the newly established President’s Commission on Mental Health, Mrs. Carter became its honorary chair. In this capacity she held hearings across the country, testified before Congress, and spearheaded passage of the Mental Health Systems Act of 1980. She continued her work in the field of mental health throughout her life.
She traveled extensively overseas, promoting both her own projects and the president’s policies. In a history making trip to Latin America in 1977, she represented the U.S. Government and visited with heads of state from seven Latin American countries, sharing her husband’s position on human rights and helping to enhance democracy in our hemisphere. In Geneva, Switzerland, she became the first First Lady to address the World Health Organization.
Drawing from her own experiences as a working woman, wife, and mother, she spent many hours lobbying for support of the Equal Rights Amendment; she mobilized representatives from private voluntary relief organizations, labor, and the corporate world in an appeal that raised tens of millions of dollars for Cambodian refugees; and she brought together 23 leading organizations to develop solutions for problems of the elderly at a White House Roundtable Discussion on Aging. In choosing an unprecedented array of White House entertainment for American leaders and international officials, she showcased American culture, initiating public telecasts of White House performances featuring the world’s finest artists and musicians.
Immunizing children against preventable disease was a special focus of Mrs. Carter’s throughout her entire public service career. As governors’ spouses, Mrs. Carter and Betty Bumpers of Arkansas worked together in their respective states to promote vaccinations. Once President Carter was in office and in response to a measles outbreak, Mrs. Carter and Mrs. Bumpers again joined forces to make vaccinations a routine public health practice. By 1981, 95 percent of children entering school were immunized against measles and other diseases.
Throughout Jimmy Carter’s years in politics, Rosalynn Carter campaigned widely on his behalf and was considered his most fervent and effective supporter. Often lauded for possessing unique political skills, she admitted being more concerned about popularity and winning than her husband, though she noted, “…I have to say that he had the courage to tackle the important issues…”
The Early Years
She was born Eleanor Rosalynn Smith on August 18, 1927, in Plains, Georgia, daughter of Wilburn Edgar Smith, a farmer who also owned and operated the first auto shop in the county, and Frances Allethea Murray, a college graduate and homemaker. As a child, she was shaped by strong religious and family values and an early acceptance of hard work and responsibility.
When her father died of leukemia at age 44, Rosalynn’s mother had to go to work. Thirteen-year-old Rosalynn helped her mother with the housekeeping and caring for her siblings and grandfather. She graduated as valedictorian from Plains High School in 1944 and from Georgia Southwestern College in 1946.
In 1946, she married Jimmy Carter, who had just graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. Mrs. Carter described her years as a Navy wife as a coming of age in which she developed the self-confidence to manage a household with three babies on her own while her husband worked and was often aboard ship.
Three sons were born in different Navy ports: John William “Jack” Carter, July 3, 1947, in Norfolk, Va.; James Earl “Chip” Carter III in Honolulu, Hawaii, on April 12, 1950; and Donnel Jeffrey “Jeff” Carter on August 18, 1952, in New London, Conn. Amy Lynn Carter was born 15 years later on October 19, 1967, in Plains.
After Carter left the Navy and returned home to run the family business upon the death of his father, Rosalynn began working alongside her husband, keeping the books for the farms and the farm supply business. During Carter’s contentious 1962 race for the state Senate, which he won after exposing a stuffed ballot box, she received her first taste of politics.
Though shy and anxious about public speaking, she became fully engaged in subsequent campaigns for his re-election and his bids for governor in 1966 and 1970. She campaigned full time on a separate schedule in the 1976 and 1980 presidential races.
As Georgia’s First Lady, Mrs. Carter led a passionate fight against the stigma of mental illnesses and worked to overhaul the state’s mental health care system. Her obligations in the governor’s mansion also called for entertaining visiting officials and diplomats, serving as liaison to civic groups, and using her influence as a public figure to advance immunizations of children and other charitable causes. She later observed that these experiences prepared her for the White House years.
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