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American First Ladies Rosalynn Smith Carter Born: August 18, 1927 - Plains, Georgia President: Jimmy Carter - 1977-1981 Overview Rosalynn Carter faced many challenges in her life. As the eldest of four children, she supported her mother emotionally after her father’s death. After marriage, Rosalynn helped her husband, Jimmy Carter, run his family’s peanut warehouse business. In 1976, before Carter was elected to the presidency, she campaigned with him. As First Lady, she campaigned in his stead because fulfilling his presidential duties was more important to the president than stumping for a second term in office. Following their White House years, the Carters returned home to Plains, where they were active in their community and church as well as in various charitable endeavors. Early Life Rosalynn was the first of four children born to Althea Murray Smith and Wilburn Edgar Smith. She was born in Plains, a small town in central Georgia. Her father owned and operated a small auto repair shop and also drove the school bus. Her mother had gone to college and held a teaching credential but after her marriage had stayed home and taken care of her growing family. The family lost their savings (one thousand dollars) when the Plains bank failed in 1926. Because there were no other girls in town her age, Rosalynn had a somewhat lonely childhood. She loved reading and enjoyed books such as Heidi, Hans Brinker, or The Silver Skates, and Robinson Crusoe. She also played games with her brothers and their friends, such as kick the can, cops and robbers, and war. Sometimes they hiked to Magnolia Springs and swam in the spring-fed pool. All the children in the family had chores. Rosalynn’s chores were making beds, churning their cow’s milk into butter, sweeping the porch, and washing and drying the dishes. Church activities were very important to the Smith family. Rosalynn participated enthusiastically in church services, Sunday school, Bible school and Methodist Youth League. Another important part of her life was the town school. Rosalynn did well in school, often making all A’s on her report cards. She tried to do well in all her subjects. In her seventh-grade class, a young teacher encouraged the students to read and bring articles to class about the events in Europe that year, 1939. Rosalynn searched the newspapers and found many interesting people and places far away from Plains, Georgia, but the events of 1939 were also frightening to the young girl, and sometimes she would lie in bed at night worrying about the future and wishing that somehow the problems of the times would “just go away.” The summer of 1939 brought other problems to Rosalynn’s family. Her father, Wilburn, whom she adored, went into the hospital for some tests. Soon after that she realized he was very sick. Once, when he had trouble breathing, Rosalynn was told to call the doctor. Instead, she ran to the doctor’s house. When she got there she was so breathless, she could hardly tell him why she had come. The doctor understood and they started immediately toward her home. Some time later Wilburn called the family together and told the children: I want you all to listen very carefully to what I have to say and be very brave. . . . The time has come to tell you that I can’t get well and you are going to have to look after Mother for me. You are good children and I’m depending on you to be strong.” Rosalynn said that her childhood “really ended at that moment. In the town of Plains, neighbors and friends helped the Smith family during Rosalynn’s father’s illness. Future president Jimmy Carter’s mother, Lillian Carter, was a visiting nurse and came each day to give shots to Wilburn. After a lengthy illness, he died of leukemia at the age of forty-four. Rosalynn’s mother was thirty-four and Rosalynn, the oldest child, was just thirteen. Less than a year later, her grandmother Murray died, and Rosalynn’s grandfather moved into town to live with his daughter and her children. Everyone leaned on Rosalynn’s mother. She now had the responsibility of caring for her four children and her father. They only had her father’s insurance of $18.25 a month on which to live, so Rosalynn’s mother sewed for people in the community, and Rosalynn helped her. Her mother also found jobs working in the school lunch room, as a clerk in the grocery store, and later as a clerk in the post office. As the oldest child, Rosalynn felt that her mother depended on her. Her mother asked her help in caring for the younger children and sought her advice on many matters, such as which job she should take and how to keep within the family budget. Rosalynn felt the need to appear strong, but inside she was full of doubts and fears. Her father’s death had left her feeling lost and vulnerable. During her father’s illness she had prayed fervently for his recovery, and when he died she wondered why God had not answered her prayers. In reaction, Rosalynn buried herself in her books and schoolwork. Gradually, she began to take an interest in other things. She tried out for and won a place on the girls’ basketball team. For a while she worked after school and on Saturdays, giving shampoos at a local beauty shop. The part-time job provided her with some spending money. She also became friends with Ruth Carter, Jimmy’s younger sister. Public schools in Georgia were segregated, and when Rosalynn was in the ninth grade she began to realize the disparities between the separate school systems. An African American woman asked Rosalynn to type her college graduation thesis. Rosalynn was surprised to find that the woman’s thesis had serious spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. She helped her correct the errors and was later pleased to learn that the woman received a passing grade. This incident led Rosalynn to realize that many black schools of the time were not equal to white schools. Rosalynn was valedictorian of her senior class. She wrote her speech and spent hours practicing it until she knew it by heart. Although very nervous (her knees were shaking), she delivered the entire speech. The next year she fulfilled her father’s dream and entered college, enrolling at Georgia Southwestern College in the nearby town of Americus. She would have liked to attend a school farther from home, but family finances dictated her decision. Marriage and Family Ruth Carter, Jimmy’s younger sister and Rosalynn’s close friend, had a picture of her brother tacked on her bedroom wall. Rosalynn “couldn’t keep her eyes off of it.” Jimmy was away at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, and Rosalynn thought he was the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was three years older than she, and at the time they had not even spoken to each other. When Jimmy came home on holiday, Rosalynn and Ruth plotted different ways they could bring Rosalynn and Jimmy together, but he always seemed too busy. Finally, Ruth called and invited Rosalynn to go with her and Jimmy to clean up the Pond House, a building Jimmy’s father had built outside of town. It was used for church picnics and parties. Rosalynn went with the Carters to the Pond House and found, to her surprise, that she could talk easily with Jimmy. They joked and laughed as they were cleaning.
Later in the day, she went to a youth meeting at the church. As she stood outside on the church lawn before the meeting, Jimmy came by and asked her to double date with him and his sister Ruth and her boyfriend. Rosalynn left the church and went off with Jimmy. After the movie, they rode in the rumble seat of the car. There was a full moon, and on the way home, Jimmy kissed her. She was “completely swept off her feet.” Jimmy must have been impressed too, because he told his mother, “She’s the girl I want to marry.” Because Jimmy had a date the next night, his last night at home, with a girl from a neighboring town, Rosalynn had resigned herself to not seeing him again until Christmas. Ruth Carter talked her into going with the Carter family to the train station at midnight to see him off. Jimmy’s mother also encouraged her. Rosalynn knew it was not the proper thing to do, but she just wanted to see Jimmy again. Jimmy was surprised to see her, but Rosalynn did not care. He walked her over to the edge of the train platform and asked her to write him. Then he kissed her good-bye. While Jimmy was away at Annapolis, he and Rosalynn wrote to each other regularly. In December, when Jimmy came home for Christmas, they saw each other many times. They attended Christmas parties together, went to the movies, and went for long drives in the country. When he asked her to marry him, she turned him down. She had promised her father that she would get a college education. She was just in her first year at Georgia Southwestern. After two years there, she planned to transfer to Georgia State College for Women, where her mother had studied. At seventeen, Rosalynn felt too young and naïve for marriage. Jimmy understood as she explained all this to him. They agreed to wait. In February she went with his parents to Annapolis on a holiday weekend. He proposed again, and this time she accepted. They were married on July 7, 1946, in what was planned to be a small church service with only a few friends and family members present. Jimmy drove to her home to pick her up, and when they arrived at the church, it was packed. Rosalynn and Jimmy’s first home together was in Norfolk, Virginia. Jimmy was assigned duty testing new navigation radar communications and gunnery equipment. He was gone from Monday until Thursday or Friday every week and then had duty on the ship one other night when it was docked. Rosalynn learned to cope with the various problems of being a young Navy wife. She opened their first bank account and handled the bills, dealing with landlords, plumbers, and electricians. She also learned to cook. She soon became pregnant, suffering from morning sickness throughout the first few months of her pregnancy. John William Carter was born on July 3, 1947. Rosalynn loved taking care of their new son, but Jack, as they called him, was not an easy child to care for. He cried a lot and did not sleep well. Sometimes Rosalynn did not get much sleep herself and was exhausted from taking care of him. Sometimes she cried, although she tried to hide this from her husband because he did not believe people should cry. Instead, he thought, they should make the best of the situation and put on a smile. When Jimmy was selected for submarine school, he and Rosalynn moved to New London, Connecticut. While living there in the students’ quarters, Rosalynn enjoyed the fellowship of the Navy wives and also studied Spanish with a young Peruvian couple. Next, the Carters went to Hawaii for one and one-half years. Their second son, James Earl Carter III, was born in Hawaii. When war began in Korea, Jimmy’s submarine was assigned to San Diego, California. Rosalynn and the two little boys flew to San Diego, where they stayed in a rented apartment in a run-down section of town. Another move took them back to New London, where Jimmy was assigned to a small new submarine. He later applied for entrance into the nuclear submarine program headed by Admiral Hyman Rickover. He was accepted, and the family moved to Schenectedy, New York, where the nuclear submarine’s reactor was being built. At that time Jimmy’s father was diagnosed with cancer, and Jimmy went back home to Plains. While in Plains, he listened to people tell of the help his father had given them. He and his father also had a long talk. Jimmy learned that his father was counting on him to look after his younger brother, his mother, and the family peanut warehouse business. Jimmy decided that he should leave the Navy and return to Plains. Rosalynn, who liked being a Navy wife, did not want to return. She later said that she “argued, cried, even screamed at him.” However, Jimmy was determined, and his will prevailed. Rosalynn was very unhappy at first. Because they had so little money, they moved into a government housing project. Rosalynn refused to join the other wives and children in the courtyard of the housing project; she did not want to fit in. Her mother remonstrated, telling Rosalynn that the neighbors worried about her because she stayed in so much. After a while, Rosalynn began to make an effort to talk with the other women. Rosalynn and Jimmy began to attend church again, and they renewed old friendships. In 1954 there was a drought, and the farmers’ crops failed so they were unable to repay credit that had been extended to them. Jimmy and Rosalynn were forced to live on a shoestring budget. In the spring of 1955 Jimmy asked Rosalynn to come down to the peanut warehouse to answer the telephone so he could visit local farmers. Rosalynn went to the warehouse and took her two children with her. Soon she was making out bills for customers, working on the accounts, and paying the business bills. She liked doing it and so continued to work there. She continued to bring the two young boys with her. They climbed on the fertilizer bags and rode in the truck with their father. That year the Carters had a good harvest, and the family worked hard from August to October weighing and grading peanuts, storing them in the warehouse, and loading them on big trucks to be transported out of Plains. They rented an old house on the edge of Plains. It had barns and other places for the children to play, but it had no central heat and was cold in the winter. With the installation of space heaters, the kitchen and den were comfortable, but the rest of the house was cold. Sometimes the pipes froze and burst. Despite the problems, they loved the old house. The children had pets: dogs, a pony, lizards, and a snake. Jimmy also was busy with business and the community. He joined the Lions Club and encouraged the townspeople to spruce up the town. The town applied for funds to pave the city streets and received a grant to do so. Jimmy became director of the Chamber of Commerce, the Library Board, the Hospital Auxiliary, and the County School Board. He also was a scoutmaster and a deacon in the Baptist Church. Rosalynn joined the Baptist Church with him and taught Sunday school. She joined the PTA, the Garden Club, and the board of a small theater group. She was the den mother for a Cub Scout pack. She attended the boys’ basketball games and sent them off to swimming lessons, continued helping out at the warehouse, and studied accounting on her own so that she could keep their books. She and her husband also enjoyed golf and dancing, took the family camping, and vacationed in Cuba, New Orleans, Florida, and Mexico. When the Supreme Court ruled in 1954 that public schools should be integrated, Rosalynn and Jimmy supported integration in their hometown, but they found that their stance was not particularly popular. Their views were shaped by their experiences in the Navy, where they had seen that integration worked, and they felt that their neighbors and friends were not being realistic in opposing its extension to the schools of Plains. Jimmy was invited, indeed pressured, to join the White Citizens Council, but he refused. The Carters were then told that if they did not join, their business would be boycotted. That frightened them, but with the exception of a few individuals, the boycotts did not develop. Jimmy decided to run for the state senate. Rosalynn managed the warehouse while he went from county to county campaigning. She also worked with friends and relatives, calling people to urge them to vote for her husband. On the day of the primary election, Jimmy found that there were numerous examples of fraud occurring in a neighboring county. When the election results from that county were announced, 430 votes were counted, but only 330 people had voted. Jimmy worked to gather evidence of the voting fraud, and a new election was called, which Jimmy won. When her husband went to Atlanta for the legislative session, Rosalynn received threats from the political boss of the neighboring county where the fraud had occurred. These threats worried her because she feared that their home or business might be destroyed. When Jimmy decided to run for governor in 1966, the family again pulled together to campaign. Rosalynn traveled across the state of Georgia, campaigning for her husband. Sometimes she was accompanied by her son Jack and her mother-in-law, Lillian. In every town, Rosalynn contacted the newspaper office and the radio and television stations and suggested they might want to interview her. Most of them did. That year, however, Jimmy was defeated. The morning after his defeat, Jimmy informed his family and friends that he intended to run again. Although he did not officially announce his candidacy, he began making preparations. The Carters recorded the names and addresses of possible supporters. They secured 150 or more phone books from Georgia towns and cities and wrote out standard letters to send. Jimmy began working on speeches. Rosalynn kept the files and clipped news items she thought he should read. During the two years before the election, he was out speaking somewhere almost every night. Rosalynn resumed campaigning the year before the election, even though it was difficult for her to leave her young daughter, Amy, who was just a toddler. Rosalynn campaigned vigorously. She would get up before dawn to meet with policemen, firemen, maintenance crews, or garbage collectors as they gathered before work. She searched for crowds at football and basketball games, livestock sales, tobacco barns, rodeos, and horse shows. She stood in front of stores, handing out brochures and asking people to support her husband. She also learned how to give speeches. The first time she was unexpectedly called on to speak, she stammered out something but felt terribly humiliated. After that, she wrote out a small speech and memorized it. She gave that speech at small coffees and receptions. She was very nervous, so much so that sometimes she would throw up on the way to wherever she was supposed to talk. She kept on and eventually got better at it. Jimmy won the election. The Carters visited the beautiful governor’s mansion in Atlanta and attended a conference for newly elected governors in North Carolina. Both of these trips helped prepare Rosalynn for her role as the governor’s wife. According to a family story, though, Lillian Carter believed that Rosalynn was not capable of performing the duties of a First Lady. When Rosalynn and Jimmy moved into the governor’s mansion, Lillian went along too, and announced that she would act as First Lady since Rosalynn was not sophisticated enough to do it. Rosalynn simply waited until she and Lillian were alone and then told her mother-in-law that she was welcome to come and visit but that she wanted to run her own household. Rosalynn even suggested that it might be better if Lillian packed up and went home and came back later when things were more settled. After that, Lillian came occasionally for visits, and Rosalynn became known as a gracious and capable hostess and as a woman who was concerned and active in a number of statewide issues. Rosalynn hired competent staff, a housekeeper, and a personal secretary, and trained prisoners to cook and wait on table. She convinced the state policemen to maintain a less obvious presence at the mansion and to wear plain clothes when they accompanied the Carter family away from home. The governor’s mansion was open to tourists four days a week and was also used as a place for special receptions for a number of groups, such as senior citizens, students, mentally retarded children, and garden clubs. Rosalynn became a member of the Governor’s Commission to Improve Services to the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped. She went to the meetings of the commission and worked one day a week at the Georgia Regional Hospital. She visited the other state hospitals and reported her findings to the commission. She also worked with the Women’s Prison Committee of the Commission on the Status of Women. When Jimmy decided to run for the presidency, Rosalynn began campaigning for him nearly a year before the primaries. She began in Florida, then visited Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont, and the remaining New England states. By November, 1976, Rosalynn had campaigned in forty-two states. She went to coffees, teas, receptions, luncheons, and dinners. She answered questions about mental health, education, prison reform, and reorganization of government. She also worked at raising money to finance the campaign, calling potential donors. She and Jimmy got help from the Peanut Brigade, a group of volunteers, mostly from Georgia, who paid their own way and traveled all over the country, telling voters about Jimmy Carter. For example, they came to New Hampshire a month before the primary election and worked very hard, knocking on doors and handing out campaign brochures. Jimmy Carter won the Democratic primary there. He lost the Massachusetts primary but won in Florida. The Carters found campaigning tiring and frustrating but also very exciting. They gained enough votes from the primaries to be certain they could win the Democratic presidential nomination. The convention was to be held that year in New York City. A number of earlier contenders called to say they would release their delegates to cast their votes for Carter. The Democratic Convention was followed by three months of campaigning. Rosalynn campaigned on a schedule specifically laid out for her. She was accompanied by her secretary and usually flew in a chartered airplane. They traveled all over the United States. Again, Jimmy won. In the time between the election and the inauguration, Jimmy invited Democratic senators and representatives, potential cabinet members, and others to meet with him at his home in Plains. Jimmy met with them, but it was Rosalynn and her mother, her secretary, and two daughters-in-law who made stacks of sandwiches and pitchers of iced tea and lemonade for their guests. Presidency and First Ladyship On the day of Carter’s inauguration, he rode in a limousine beside President Gerald Ford to the ceremony at the Capitol. Rosalynn and Betty Ford followed in the second car. Following the inauguration and lunch at the Capitol, Jimmy, Rosalynn, and their children broke with tradition and, instead of riding back home in automobiles, got out and walked along the route. Holding hands, with Amy between them or dropping back to walk with her brothers, the Carters walked, waving and smiling at the cheering crowds. Their walk was broadcast all over the United States; it was the beginning of a new administration. On that first day, after exploring the White House, Jimmy and Rosalynn attended seven inaugural balls and, during the next two days, a series of receptions. Rosalynn found it all exciting but also exhausting. Her hand throbbed from shaking so many people’s hands and her feet hurt. Finally she slipped her shoes off while she was still standing in a reception line. As they settled in at the White House, Rosalynn found that she had many things to discuss with her husband, such as decisions about White House guests, invitations, and answers to letters. Jimmy suggested that she arrange to have lunch with him one day a week; they could take up the matters at lunch, and he would not be faced with them at the end of a long working day, when he had to deal with weightier problems. Rosalynn and Jimmy continued to discuss matters of varied importance. She found that it was easier for her to learn about people’s problems than it was for him. He was always surrounded by officials, while she could still meet and talk with individuals about their concerns, whether they were the special problems of the elderly, high fuel costs in the North, or raising children in the inner cities. In her own words, she gave her husband a “firsthand report of the attitudes and needs of people in our country.” She and the boys also acted as sounding boards when Jimmy was trying to think through a particular issue. Rosalynn and Jimmy did argue about political timing. There were a number of instances when she wanted him to postpone addressing controversial issues until his second term, such as the Panama Canal treaties, Middle East policies, or the energy policy. Jimmy would say that it was more important to do what needed to be done than to win a second term as president. Rosalynn had a staff of twenty-one people to plan and carry out all official and social White House functions. They were responsible for arranging the details of teas, receptions, luncheons, state dinners, ceremonies on the White House lawn, lectures, and briefings by the president, vice president, and cabinet members, and for coverage by the press at these events. They were also in charge of sending out information on the White House and its history. In addition, Rosalynn and her staff worked on her special projects, such as setting up the President’s Commission on Mental Health, putting together a task force to inventory federal programs for the elderly, and making a list of qualified women for federal appointments. Finally, they were responsible for handling the mail addressed to the family. They received nearly eleven thousand letters each month. Rosalynn spent endless hours autographing photographs and always had a stack of photos waiting for her signature at her desk. She also attended cabinet meetings. Jimmy had suggested that she attend so that she would know what was going on as well as the reasons behind the decisions that were being made. She took notes occasionally if there was something she wanted to ask Jimmy about, but she usually sat quietly in the background and never participated in the discussions. In June of 1977, Rosalynn visited seven countries in Latin America. She spent two months preparing for the trip, attending briefing sessions, practicing her Spanish, and reviewing materials on Latin America. Although some members of Congress opposed her going, saying that Latin Americans would not appreciate a woman envoy, she was well received. She was accompanied by State Department representatives, secretaries, and Secret Service agents. Also along were twenty-seven members of the press. Rosalynn spent a number of hours with government leaders at each stop. She presented her husband’s policies on issues such as trade, human rights, and arms sales. She took notes on the concerns expressed by those she spoke with and carried those concerns back to her husband as well as the State Department. Among the many who visited the White House during the Carter Administration, a few guests stand out. When the planned visit of Pope John Paul II to the United States was announced, thousands of people wrote to ask if they could be invited to the reception for him. The guest list kept expanding until it was decided to hold the reception on both lawns outside the White House. It had been cold and rainy, but as the pope arrived, the sun burst through the clouds. Soprano Leontyne Price sang the Lord’s Prayer. The president welcomed the pontiff, who replied with remarks calling upon Americans to be leaders in the struggle for peace and human rights in the world. Then the pope moved through the crowds, blessing all he passed. In September of 1978, other important visitors arrived: Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel and President Anwar el-Sadat of Egypt. They had been invited to attend a meeting at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, in the hope that they might be able to reach an accord between their two nations. Jimmy hoped that these talks might lead to peace in the Middle East. Rosalynn had become friendly with the two men’s wives, who were also invited; it was hoped that including the wives at the meeting would lead to a more relaxed atmosphere. Living accommodations were arranged to facilitate discussions. The Sadats were assigned to one cabin, the Begins to another, and the Carters stayed in a third, all within one hundred yards of one another. Each leader brought his own advisers and secretaries, who stayed in buildings a little farther away. Rosalynn had worked on an international call to prayer, along with Jimmy’s prayer group and press secretary Jody Powell. . . . conscious of the grave issues which face us, we place our trust in the God of our fathers, from whom we seek wisdom and guidance. As we meet here at Camp David, we ask people of all faiths to pray with us that peace and justice may result from these deliberations. Rosalynn was at Camp David during most of the deliberations and was one of the few people with whom her husband could discuss the problems of the meetings. She also represented her husband at a number of scheduled events at the White House, as he was so deeply involved in the Camp David negotiations. When the negotiations were successful in arriving at a peace treaty that the Israeli and Egyptian leaders both agreed to sign, Rosalynn and her staff invited the cabinet members and the Egyptian and Israeli embassies’ personnel to the White House for the formal signing of the treaty, ending thirty-one years of hostility between the two nations. The year after this foreign policy triumph brought international crises. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and Jimmy led the United States in withdrawing from the coming 1980 Moscow Olympics. He also declared an embargo on shipments of grain to the Soviets. Also in 1979, Iranian militants invaded the American Embassy in Tehran and captured sixty-five Americans, holding them hostage and demanding the return of deposed Iranian leader Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi for trial. After the Iranian revolution, the shah had left Iran to come to the United States for medical treatment. Carter refused the terrorists’ demands and imposed sanctions against Iran, which initially won him widespread support in the United States. At that time, he announced his intention to run for reelection in 1980. Because Jimmy said that he was needed in Washington, D.C., to deal with these crises, Rosalynn tried to fill his place on the campaign trail. She traveled from Washington for two or three days each week to campaign around the country for her husband. It was she who had to face angry farmers in Iowa who feared that the Soviet grain embargo would hurt them. As she campaigned around the United States, she was asked many times about the hostages in Iran. She and her husband were both frustrated by the situation; diplomatic measures had not secured the hostages’ release. She met with the families of the hostages, one of whom suggested that people tie yellow ribbons around trees to symbolize their longed-for return. Rosalynn tied one around a tree on the White House lawn. People around the United States also tied ribbons on trees. Popular opinion was shifting, though: People began to ask why the president was not taking stronger action. When Carter’s intelligence information indicated that no release of hostages was in sight, his administration attempted a military rescue operation to free them. The operation failed tragically, with the deaths of eight volunteer rescue team members in a helicopter crash. The hostages did come home; ironically, they were released on January 20, 1981, the day Jimmy’s successor, Ronald Reagan, was sworn in as president. Legacy Rosalynn opened new paths for future presidents’ wives by assuming a major role as First Lady. She was used to acting as her husband’s partner, and she frequently substituted for him at ceremonial occasions and advised him on policy matters and political strategy. She served as hostess at the White House, a traditional role, but also as hostess at Camp David during the negotiations between leaders of Israel and Egypt. She was also a major campaigner in all of Jimmy’s electoral contests. Carter’s defeat in 1980 was very difficult for Rosalynn to accept, but in subsequent years she and her husband engaged in a variety of activities. They moved back to Plains and remained active in their town and church as well as Habitat for Humanity housing projects. In 1982 the Carters founded the Carter Center in Atlanta, a nonprofit public policy center dedicated to fighting disease and poverty, promoting human rights, and educating people worldwide. Both Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter served on the Center’s board of trustees, and both wrote accounts of their lives. Rosalynn’s book, First Lady from Plains, was well received. More books followed, some written with her husband and others by herself. Looking back at her life, Rosalynn said, “Although we face extraordinary responsibilities and will live a life we never dreamed of, we are first and foremost always Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter from Plains, Georgia.” Suggested Readings Carter, Hugh. Cousin Beedie and Cousin Hot: My Life with the Carter Family of Plains, Georgia. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1978. A Carter relative offers a homey remembrance of the childhoods and early lives of President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Carter. Carter, Jimmy. An Outdoor Journal: Adventures and Reflections. Little Rock: University of Arkansas Press, 1994. Interesting outdoor information, comparable to a scout manual, which includes information about the Carter family. Carter, Jimmy, and Rosalynn Carter. Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life. Little Rock: University of Arkansas Press, 1995. Warm and unpretentious dual account of the Carters’ transition from the White House back to ordinary life; highlights issues such as health care and the Carter Center. Carter, Rosalynn. First Lady from Plains. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1984. Rosalynn Carter’s candid memories of her life before and during her First Ladyship. Carter, Rosalynn, and Susan K. Golant. Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers. New York: Times Books, 1998. Cleanly organized discussion of the mental illness issues is interwoven with individual accounts. Kaufman, Burton I. The Presidency of James Earl Carter, Jr. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993. Author argues that Jimmy Carter’s well-intentioned abandonment of Washington protocol hurt his presidency. Jean M. Choate |
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