FLOTUS: Eleanor Rosalynn Carter Part I

 

Eleanor Rosalynn Carter (/ˈroʊzəlɪn/ ROH-zə-lin; née Smith; born August 18, 1927) is an American writer and activist who served as the first lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981 as the wife of President Jimmy Carter. For decades, she has been a leading advocate for numerous causes, including mental health.

Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, graduated as salutatorian of Plains High School, and soon after attended Georgia Southwestern College, and graduated in 1946. She first became attracted to her husband after seeing a picture of him in his Annapolis uniform, and they married in 1946. Carter helped her husband win the governorship of Georgia in 197 and decided to focus her attention on the field of mental health when she was that state's first lady. She campaigned for her husband during his successful bid to become President of the United States in the 1976 election, defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford.

Carter was politically active during her husband's presidency, though declared that she had no intention of being a traditional first lady. During her husband's administration, Carter supported her husband's public policies as well as his social and personal life. To remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. Carter also represented her husband in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, including as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. He found her to be an equal partner. She campaigned for his re-election bid in the 1980 election, which he lost to Republican Ronald Reagan.

Since leaving the White House in 1981, Carter has continued to advocate for mental health and other causes and has written several books. She and her husband have contributed to the expansion of the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity. Aged 96, Carter is the second-longest-lived first lady after Bess Truman and is the longest-married first lady. She and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.

Early life

Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born on August 18, 1927, in Plains, Georgia. She was the eldest of four children of Wilburn Edgar Smith, an auto mechanic, bus driver,r, and farmer, and Frances A Allethea"Allie" Murray Smith, a teacher, dressmaker,r, and postal worker. Her brothers were William Jerrold "Jerry" Smith (1929–2003), an engineer, and Murray Lee Smith (1932–2003), a teacher and minister. Her sister, Lillian Allethea (Smith) Wall (born 1936), known as Allethea, named for her mother and for Lillian Gordy Carter (Smith and Carter families being friends), is a real estate broker. Rosalynn was named after Rosa Wise Murray, her maternal grandmother. Smith's grand-uncle W.S. Wise was one of the American Brazilians known as Confederados who emigrated from the United States to Brazil after the Civil War.

Smith's family lived in poverty, although she later claimed that she and her siblings were unaware, since even though their family "didn't have money," neither did "anyone else, so as far as we knew, we were well off." Churches and schools were at the center of her family's community, and the people of Plains were familiar with each other. Smith played with the boys during her early childhood since no girls on her street were her age. She drew buildings and was interested in airplanes, which led her to believe that she would someday become an architect.

Rosalynn's father died of leukemia when she was 13 in 1940. She called the loss of her father the conclusion of her childhood. Thereafter, she helped her mother raise her younger siblings, as well as assisting in the dressmaking business to meet the family's financial obligations. Rosalynn would credit her mother with inspiring her own independence and said that she learned from her mother that "you can do what you have to do". At Plains High School, Rosalynn worked hard to achieve her father's dream of seeing her go to college. Rosalynn graduated as a salutatorian at Plains High School. Soon after, she attended Georgia Southwestern College and graduated in 1946.

Rosalynn first dated Jimmy Carter in 1945 while he was attending the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. She became attracted to him after seeing a picture of him in his Annapolis uniform. The two were riding in the back seat of the car of Ruth Carter Stapleton's boyfriend when Jimmy surprised Rosalynn by kissing her. This was the first time that Rosalynn had ever allowed a boy to do so on the first date. Rosalynn agreed to marry Jimmy in February 1946 when she went to Annapolis with his parents. The two scheduled their marriage to take place in July and kept the arrangement secret. Rosalynn resisted telling her mother she had chosen to marry instead of continuing her education. On July 7, 1946, they married in Plains. The marriage canceled Rosalynn's plans to attend Georgia State College for Women, where she had planned to study interior design. The couple had four children: John William "Jack" (b. 1947), James Earl "Chip" III (b. 1950), Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" (b. 1952), and Amy Lynn (b. 1967).

Politics

First Lady of Georgia

After helping her husband win the governorship of Georgia in 1970, Rosalynn decided to focus her attention in the field of mental health when she was that state's First Lady. It was her main focus. She was appointed to the Governor's Commission to Improve Services for the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped. Many of the Commission's recommendations were approved and became law. In August 1971, Carter engaged in a statewide tour of mental health facilities across Georgia. She has described her efforts for mentally disabled children as her proudest achievement as First Lady of Georgia.

Carter also served as a volunteer at the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, and for four years was honorary chairperson for the Georgia Special Olympics.

Among the wives of Georgia legislators, she was considered a model and was revered for her traits and appearance. Her activities included entertaining as many as 75 people a week at the Governor's Mansion. Governor Carter once claimed that he had supported the Equal Rights Amendment while his wife was opposed to the measure, the First Lady privately confronting him upon hearing news of the claim.

1976 presidential campaign

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 returned to 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?" She promoted the establishment of additional daycare facilities and adjustments to "Social Security and so many other things to help the elderly."

During the months when she was campaigning across the country, she was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Mental Health, honored by the National Organization for Women with an Award of Merit for her vigorous support for the Equal Rights Amendment, and received the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Southwestern Association of Volunteer Services.

Rosalynn sat on the balcony at Madison Square Garden with friends and family the night of the nomination while her husband was with his mother and daughter. She had "butterflies in her stomach," until the Ohio delegation announced its votes were for her husband. Rosalynn wished she could have been with him at that time. The Carters met with all the potential running mates, and instantly gained affinity for Walter Mondale after meeting with him and his wife Joan. Following the election, the Carters traveled to the White House and met with President Ford and First Lady Betty Ford, the latter becoming a role model for Rosalynn.

First Lady of the United States (1977–1981)

Major initiatives

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. The gown that she wore to the inaugural balls was the same one that she had worn six years earlier at the Atlanta balls when Jimmy became governor.

Rosalynn declared that she had no intention of being a traditional First Lady of the United States. During her husband's administration, Rosalynn supported her husband's public policies as well as his social and personal life. To remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. The first meeting she attended was on February 28, 1977, where she felt comfortable since she was among other officials who were not members of the unit. The idea for her to be in attendance came from her husband's suggestion after she started to question him about a news story.

She wrote notes but never spoke. As she put it, "I was there to be informed so that when I traveled across the country, which I did a great deal, and was questioned by the press and other individuals about all areas of government, I'd know what was going on." When the cultural exchange program Friendship Force International launched at the White House on March 1, 1977, she became honorary chairperson, a position she held until 2002. She joined Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford in supporting the unsuccessful campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) at the Houston conference celebrating the International Women's Year in 1977.

For Christmas 1977, she decorated the White House's Christmas tree with ornaments from pine cones, peanuts, and egg shells. On July 27, 1978, Carter was the host of the "First Lady's Employment Seminar". 200-300 delegates came and shared information to learn how other communities responded to unemployment. Rosalynn remembered 1979 and 1980 as years of never-ending crises, the years having "Big ones and small ones, potential disasters and mere annoyances."

During 1978, Carter became involved with an effort to reform D.C. General Hospital after criticizing the appearance of it, traveling to the hospital for reviews of changing conditions as more work was done in remodeling.

Despite finding time to entertain, the Carters never were able to match their immediate predecessors and Rosalynn never considered it a major part of her job as First Lady. Criticism came towards her role as First Lady by a U.S. diplomat in Brazil, who insisted that women were meant to be kept "at home and that's all." The cultural factor also caused many to oppose her trip. Critics called her too programmed and disciplined while others said she lacked the admirable qualities of Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford. Despite this, Rosalynn was pleased by her viewed role as a demanding First Lady and remembered the times of presidents' wives being "confined" to "official hostess" and other demeaning roles. To advance the appearance of the White House, she accumulated American paintings.

After the Carter administration began losing popularity, Rosalynn advised Gerald Rafshoon be brought on as White House Director of Communications and have key media figures at the White House during "informal, off‐the‐record, deep discussions about issues." Rafshoon was selected and confirmed for the position.

Mental health campaign

In March 1977, Carter gave her first interview since becoming First Lady. She outlined her goals in focusing on mental health: "For every person who needs mental health care to be able to receive it close to his home and to remove the stigma from mental health care so people will be free to talk about it and seek help. It's been taboo for so long to admit you had a mental health problem."

Rosalynn Carter served as an active honorary chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health. On behalf of the Mental Health System Bill, enacted in 1980, she testified before a Senate committee, the second First Lady to appear before Congress (the first being Eleanor Roosevelt). Of her priorities, mental health was the highest. Working to change the nature of government assistance to the mentally ill, Carter wanted to allow people to be comfortable admitting their disabilities without fear of being called crazy.

Influence

After she had been in the office of First Lady for two years, Time magazine called her the "second most powerful person in the United States." Many times, Carter's husband called her an equal partner. He also said she was a "perfect extension of myself." During a 1977 interview, Carter admitted that she quarreled with her husband over his policies but his own decision was what he acted on, and she denied influencing his major decisions. In an interview the following year, Carter stated that she did not publicly disagree with her husband's policies out of a belief that she "would lose all my effectiveness with him" as well as her opinion that the gesture would not assist in changing his perspective to her own. She outlined that a First Lady could influence officials or the public by discussing an issue or giving attention to it.

Biographer MaryAnne Borrelli wrote that Carter considered her attempts to portray herself as a traditional wife and influencing factor in her husband's administration would be "viewed by some as dependent upon her husband, by others as lacking accountability, and by still others as doing too little–or too much." Years after leaving the White House, Carter would remain bothered by claims that she exerted too much influence on her husband, insisting they had an equal partnership. Jimmy Carter would later write that the two engaged in discussions on a variety of issues and she was aware of everything within the administration apart from "a few highly secret and sensitive security matters".

Travels

Rosalynn represented President Carter in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, most notably as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. She purposely scheduled so as not to have meetings with any of the heads of state. President Carter said that while his wife had initially been met with hesitance as an American representative, after those meetings, they now rely on her substantially to be sure that he understands the sensitivities of the people." Following the Latin America meetings, David Vidal observed, "Mrs. Carter has achieved a personal and diplomatic success that goes far beyond the modest expectations of both her foreign policy tutors at the State Department and her hosts."

In a June 7, 1977 news conference, Carter stated that her meetings with Brazilian leaders included discussions on human rights and her wishes for Brazil to include itself among other countries seeking out a reduction in nuclear weapons via an international study. On December 30, 1977, Carter and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski met with Stefan Wyszyński at the Cardinal's Warsaw residence. President Carter said the meeting was intended to display American "appreciation for the degree of freedom of worship in the country."

Carter led the American delegation to the May 1978 inauguration of Rodrigo Carazo Odio as President of Costa Rica. In August 1978, Rosalynn led the American delegation to the funeral of Pope Paul VI in Rome.

Rosalynn 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 speeding up a large appeal for assistance after being affected by the suffering she witnessed during her visit. By the time she had returned, however, her husband met with families of the hostages in Iran. They were more concerned about what they needed to do to get them out than being worried about whether or not they would ever get out. Carter stated that she wanted to return to the US as quickly as possible to mobilize their forces to assist in calming the refugees' plight.

Life in the White House

She was the first First Lady to keep her own office in the East Wing. She also oversaw her family at the White House. Her daughter, Amy, attracted much public attention. The two youngest sons, Chip and Jeff, and their families also lived in the White House. Other members of the family, including son Jack and his wife and children, were frequent visitors. Rosalynn Carter's Secret Service codename was "Dancer". In 1977, Carter reported that her family was divided in their reaction to public perception of them, saying her sons were worried about how they would be perceived living there while she personally thought nothing of it as the public was not financing their residence and she favored the family being together.

On August 16, 1979, Carter released a statement announcing Edith J. Dobelle had accepted "the newly created position of staff director for the East Wing".

After leaving the White House, Carter reflected on Washington, "I love this city. I loved living here and being so close to the seat of power, being a part of the political system. When you watched television you knew the people involved, you were familiar with both sides of the issues."

Equal Rights Amendment

During the 1976 campaign, Carter spoke to feminists about her equal partnership with her husband. In January 1977, before the inauguration of her husband, Carter substituted for him in speaking with Senator Birch Bayh over the phone as the latter wanted President-elect Carter to lobby for support of the Equal Rights Amendment being ratified in Indiana. She persuaded Wayne Townsend to switch his vote and the Equal Rights Amendment was approved in an Indiana Senate vote of 26 to 24.

About Carter's role in supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, associate professor of religion Elizabeth Flowers said, "[Rosalynn Carter] wanted to temper down some of the more radical elements of feminism, as she saw it, and challenge what she felt were caricatures of the movement. She wanted to be sure that the struggle for ERA really appealed to mainstream America."

Public image

During the 1976 election cycle, journalists dubbed Carter the "steel magnolia" for having a fragile and feminine appearance that concealed a "tough as nails" interior. Carter was known for a lack of attention paid to fashion, and her choice to reuse the gown from her husband's swearing-in as Governor to his presidential inauguration reinforced this view of her. Carter's public interest in national policy prompted Kandy Stroud of The New York Times to speculate she might become the most activist First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. Amid the sinking approval ratings of President Carter, Rosalynn maintained highly favorable viewpoints in the eyes of the public and was tied with Mother Teresa as the most admired woman in the world. In April 1979, during her speech as guest speaker at the 1979 Matrix Awards Luncheon of New York Women in Communications Inc., Carter said the issues she was championing were being met with opposition due to their lack of sexiness in being topics a First Lady discusses.

1980 presidential campaign

President Carter was challenged by Ted Kennedy for his re-election bid in the Democratic presidential primary. Carter would later write that the ongoing Iran hostage crisis impacted the latter's choice to rely on Rosalynn among others in his administration to advocate for his policies on the campaign trail. Vice President Mondale would come to view himself and Rosalynn as President Carter's proxies through much of the spring portion of the election cycle. Rosalynn would reflect that the Iowa victory of the Carter re-election campaign, which saw President Carter defeat Kennedy 59.16% to 31.23%, made it easier for her to be unbothered by Kennedy's attacks. Although President Carter was able to secure the nomination, Rosalynn would come to believe that Kennedy had damaged the Democratic Party through his campaign and not adequately assisted in the general election: "He was a poor loser. I thought that once he saw that he could not win he would try to help the Democratic Party because I thought it was so important to keep Ronald Reagan out of the White House and I thought he should have helped. Instead, he tore the Democratic Party to pieces."

In the last few months of her husband's presidency, Rosalynn was confident that she and her husband would be able to defeat Reagan in the general election. On her birthday, she saw polls that showed they were gaining on Reagan, whose previous lead of 25 percent had decreased to 7. In the November 4 election, Carter lost to Reagan in a landslide. Rosalynn would later cite Christian conservatives, the Iran hostage crisis, inflation, and desire to wage a protest vote against the current administration with having contributed to Carter's defeat. Her husband's loss came shortly after the passing of the Mental Health System Act, which sought to do much of what she had wished for during her tenure. However, after Ronald Reagan was elected, she reflected "funding of our legislation was killed, by the philosophy of a new President. It was a bitter loss."

In the days following the election, Rosalynn experienced depression, which led her husband to express the benefits of his impending post-presidency. She telephoned supporters of the re-election campaign to thank them for their involvement. Rosalynn met with Reagan's wife, Nancy, during the transitional period and provided her with a tour of the White House. Rosalynn and Nancy developed a friendship as a result of their shared support for the Equal Rights Amendment. She was also satisfied that the Iran hostages were released on the day of Reagan's inauguration.