Rosalynn Carter: A Life Dedicated to Education, Advocacy, and Public Service
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith Carter, former First Lady of the United States, dedicated her life to public service, advocacy, and education. From her early years in Plains, Georgia, to her influential role on the world stage, Mrs. Carter left an indelible mark on American society and beyond. Her commitment to mental health, caregiving, and human rights has inspired generations.
Early Life and Education
Born on August 18, 1927, in Plains, Georgia, Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was the eldest of four children born to Wilburn Edgar Smith, a farmer and auto mechanic, and Frances Allethea Murray, a college graduate and homemaker. Her early life in Plains was marked by close-knit community ties and the values of hard work and resilience. Churches and schools were at the center of her family's community, and the people of Plains were familiar with each other. She was named after Rosa Wise Murray, her maternal grandmother.
When Rosalynn was 13, her father died of leukemia at the age of 44, forcing her mother to work to support the family. Rosalynn helped with housekeeping and caring for her siblings and grandfather. These early experiences instilled in her a sense of responsibility and compassion that would guide her future endeavors.
Rosalynn graduated as valedictorian of Plains High School. Soon after, she attended Georgia Southwestern College (now Georgia Southwestern State University), where she earned a Junior College Diploma in 1946. She was very special to this campus, to our community, and to those all over the world. She leaves a legacy far too grand to be explained. We will always remember her incredible accomplishments and dedication to service, and will continue to build on her legacy of advocacy. On Georgia Southwestern’s campus in 1945, she served as Vice President of her class, a founding member of the Young Democrats Club, and a Campus Marshal. She was a "day student," traveling back and forth from Plains to Americus every day for classes and also participated in the Tumbling Club.
Marriage and Family
Rosalynn first dated Jimmy Carter in 1945 while he was attending the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. The two were riding in the back seat of the car of Ruth Carter Stapleton's boyfriend when Jimmy Carter kissed her. They married on July 7, 1946, at the Plains Methodist Church. Her marriage caused Rosalynn to cancel her plans to attend Georgia State College for Women, where she had planned to study interior design. They began married life in Norfolk, Virginia, the first of several residences connected with his naval career. The couple had four children: John William "Jack" (born 1947), James Earl "Chip" III (born 1950), Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" (born 1952), and Amy Lynn (born 1967).
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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. She later wrote, "I knew more about the books and more about the business on paper than Jimmy did".
Georgia's First Lady
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. 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. Soon after becoming Georgia’s governor, Carter established the Commission to Improve Services for the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped, to which he appointed Mrs. Carter. She worked on it for four years, volunteering in hospitals and learning about the issues. 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.
Campaigning for the Presidency
By the time Jimmy became governor in 1970, Rosalynn had gained the confidence to campaign on her own and began giving short extemporaneous speeches, an activity that had terrified her earlier. After Jimmy announced his candidacy for president, Rosalynn played an unprecedented early role. Eighteen months before the 1976 election, she began campaigning on her own, driving with a friend through towns where no one knew her to discuss why her husband should be president.
After her husband won the governorship of Georgia in 1970, Rosalynn decided to focus her attention mainly in the field of mental health when she was that state's first lady. When her husband's gubernatorial term ended in January 1975, Rosalynn, Jimmy, and Amy Carter returned to Plains. Jimmy had already announced his plans to run for president of the United States. Rosalynn got back on the campaign trail, this time on a national quest to gather support for her husband. She campaigned alone on his behalf in 41 states. Because of her husband's obscurity at the time, she often had to answer the question, "Jimmy who?".
First Lady of the United States
When her husband assumed the presidency in January 1977, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter walked hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue during his presidential inauguration parade. Carter declared that she had no intention of being a traditional first lady of the United States. As first lady, Rosalynn participated in political affairs to an extent unmatched by any of her predecessors. She and her husband both acknowledged her status as a full working partner by scheduling weekly business lunches together, though her office remained in the East Wing, the traditional province of the president’s wife. She attended cabinet meetings when the subject under discussion interested her and attracted attention for taking whatever seat was vacant, even if it happened to be the one normally occupied by Vice Pres. Walter Mondale.
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She was the first presidential spouse to carry a briefcase to a White House office on a daily basis. Rosalynn Carter carried a briefcase to her office in the East Wing each day, something no other first lady ever had done. She also established the Office of the First Lady’s Projects.
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 notably disagreed with Ted Kennedy's claim that funding for mental health had increased in recent years. President Carter signed the Mental Health Systems Act into law in October 1980, with Rosalynn in attendance. Kennedy praised the bill as a "monument" to the commitment and concern of the First Lady, and Rosalynn herself said she had "looked forward to this day for a long time."
In June 1977 she visited seven nations in the Caribbean and Latin America and met with their leaders to discuss substantive matters related to defense and trade. 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.
She also led a delegation to Thailand in 1979 to address the problems of Cambodian and Laotian refugees. She examined camps where Cambodian refugees had fled to avoid the combat between the Vietnamese troops and the government of Pol Pot. Helping the refugees, particularly the children, became a special cause for her. She returned to the United States and played a prominent role in expediting an appeal for large assistance after she witnessed their suffering during her visit.
During her time in the White House, Mrs. Carter energetically endorsed ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in speeches as well as at fundraisers and press conferences. In addition, she pressed key legislators from unratified states, hoping to win their support.
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Post-White House Activities
After what she called “involuntary retirement” to Plains in 1981, her working relationship with her husband expanded. In 1982, they together founded The Carter Center in Atlanta, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for people at home and in the developing world through programs to alleviate suffering and advance human rights. As emissaries for the Center, the Carters circled the globe many times on nonpolitical campaigns to eradicate Guinea worm disease and other neglected tropical diseases, increase agricultural production in Africa, monitor elections in nascent democracies, urge greater compliance with international human rights standards, and resolve conflicts.
As a full partner providing direction and vision for the Center, Mrs. She established the Carter Center’s Mental Health Program to continue her work to combat stigma and discrimination against people with mental illnesses and promote improved mental health care in the United States and abroad. In 2000, The Carter Center and Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health established the Rosalynn Carter Endowed Chair in Mental Health to honor Mrs. Carter’s lifelong commitment to mental health advocacy.
In 1987, Mrs. Carter founded the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregivers at Georgia Southwestern State University to support those who selflessly cared for others and build on her belief that “there are only four kinds of people in this world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers and those who will need caregivers.” The Rosalynn Carter Institute began by helping caregivers in Georgia through direct service programs. Today it serves all family caregivers, which number over 40 million people in the United States.
In her unwavering dedication to others, Rosalynn Carter reunited with Betty Bumpers to form Vaccinate Your Family (founded as Every Child By Two) to campaign for timely infant immunizations. She was honorary chair of the call-to-action campaign, Last Acts: Care and Caring at the End of Life, a national coalition of individuals and organizations advocating more compassionate care for those who are dying, and distinguished fellow of the Emory University Department of Women’s Studies.
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter worked for more than five decades to improve the quality of life for people around the world. She was a leading advocate for mental health, caregiving, early childhood immunization, human rights, and conflict resolution through her work at The Carter Center in Atlanta.
Legacy and Honors
As a lifelong resident of Plains, Mrs. Carter was an avid supporter of her hometown and a strong advocate for maintaining its historic integrity. She served on the boards of the Plains Historic Preservation Trust and the Friends of the Jimmy Carter National Historical Park.
Mrs. Carter was the author of five books: her autobiography First Lady from Plains; Everything To Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life, a book co-authored with President Carter and inspired by their life after the White House; Helping Yourself Help Others: A Book For Caregivers (with Susan K. Golant); Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers (with Susan K. Golant), which was selected as the winner of the 1999 American Society of Journalists and Authors Outstanding Book Award in the service category, and Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis (with Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E.
Since graduating from Georgia Southwestern College in 1946, Mrs. Carter received many honors, among them the Volunteer of the Decade Award from the National Mental Health Association; the Award of Merit for Support of the Equal Rights Amendment from the National Organization for Women; the Notre Dame Award for International Service; the Eleanor Roosevelt Living World Award from Peace Links; the Kiwanis World Service Medal from Kiwanis International Foundation; the Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service; the Georgia Woman of the Year Award from the Georgia Commission on Women; the Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health from the National Academy of Medicine; the United States Surgeon General’s Medallion; and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor.
Two buildings on GSW's campus bear her name as part of the Rosalynn Carter Health and Human Sciences Complex, with a bronze statue of Mrs. Carter placed in front. The two-phase project, Carter I and Carter II, cost an estimated $15 million. Carter I, completed in 2011, included the construction of a 46,000 square foot, state-of-the-art classroom and clinical space for the College of Nursing and Health Sciences. In 2006, the Carters received the Excellence in Philanthropy Award, and in 1975, Mrs. Carter was recognized as the first recipient of GSW's Aeolian Award recognizing distinguished alumni in their respective fields. Nominated by GSW in 1987, Mrs. Carter received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and in 2001, GSW awarded Mrs. Carter an honorary Doctory of Humane Letters degree. In 2011, Mrs.
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