Had receptions, and i would have been criticized as much as i was criticized outside of for what i did, but and i got a lot of criticism. But you learn to live with it, as i said earlier. I mean, just live with it. You expect it, and you live with it and never let it influence me. Rosalynn carter, in a recent interview conducted for this series in atlanta. She was her husbands political partner from their first campaign. As first lady, she attended president jimmy carters cabinet meetings and championed womens rights and Mental Health issues, even testifying before congress. Their partnership on issues has continued in their long postwhite house years. Good evening, and welcome to cspan series first ladies, influence and image. Tonight, we turn the page. Were going to begin this part of this yearlong series, biography series, by looking at the lives of the living first ladies, and Eleanor Rosalynn smith carter is our first of these, the wife of our 39th president. Let me introduce to you our two guests who will be in our studio for the next 90 minutes to tell you about her biography. Jay hakes is a president ial historian and spent 13 years as the director of the Carter Library. Thanks for being here tonight. Grace hale is a professor of history and american studies at university of virginia, and she specializes in the history of the south. Nice to meet you. Thanks for coming tonight. Thanks for having me. I want to pick up on mrs. Carters themes, and i should tell folks at home that she was gracious enough to give us an almost hourlong interview in atlanta and throughout the program, well show you clips of it and well post the full interview online, so you can watch all that she had to say about her 10 years first lady. But i want to pick up on that things that ive learned that she referenced. One of the things thats fascinating is that the cartersfirst visit to the white house was after hed been elected and their inauguration. But weve heard that a lot in our first half of the series, when travel was difficult but its unusual for the modern age. What skills did she bring to this job . Well, i think in some ways, you know, the transition for her from plains to the Governors Mansion in atlanta was a was a big transition. But there, she did get a chance to, you know, host parties, to take on issues and do the kind of things that first ladies do at the white house, albeit at a at a smaller level. So, you know, in one sense, they were the washington outsiders coming into a town that where they had not spent much time. But also, they had that experience as governor, that i think she used as kind of a foundation for what she expected to do as first lady. I want to stay with that theme for a second. We have many books on first ladies. This one is by john roberts, rating the first ladies. And heres what he says, under Rosalynn Carter, the office of the first lady completed its 20th century metamorphosis from a mere extension of the presidency into a vital white house organ. Previous first ladies had blazed the trail by campaigning, et cetera, but none had approached the job with the discipline and professionalism of Rosalynn Carter and her staff. For the first time, the first lady hired a chief of staff whose government salary and rank were equal to the president s chief of staff. Under rosalynn, the fulltime east wing positions grew by almost 20 percent. But more important, she used the staff differently, organized the workings of the office to expand beyond traditional and social and entertainment functions. Yes. I mean, you know, her when she grew up, almost during her entire childhood, the first lady of the United States was eleanor roosevelt. So one would have to think that that was a pretty powerful image of a first lady who did it differently than it had ever been done before, who testified before congress, which is something that Rosalynn Carter also did. And she wanted to be a serious player on the issues. She wanted the president to take her seriously. They had a close partnership. They communicated back and forth very openly, very candidly. She was not afraid to criticize him in private. So it was a strong, kind of the modern era, first ladies get involved in the big substantive issues where you can make a difference. Well, let me ask another theme throughout the series, and that has been of the role of women in society. And im wondering, weve learned so often that the first lady really is a linchpin for changes for women in the country. What about women in 1976, and particularly, southern women and how accepting the public was of their involvement in politics . Well, she became the first lady at a time of great change in womens roles and i think that, you know, that made her job challenging but it also gave her some really wonderful opportunities, which she really worked hard to seize. I mean, i love a story that i read somewhere that she told, that it was a lot harder to learn how to be the first lady in the Governors Mansion, because she had to train her staff, that they came from the prisons, to work in the to work in various capacities in the Governors Mansion. And when she got to the white house, everybody knew what to do, so that it was a wellscripted machine, and that that was easier to do. But, you know, she came into the white house at a moment when womens roles were really changing greatly across the country. And i think people were surprised that she was such an outspoken person coming from a background in the smalltown south and that she really tackled issues in a serious way. I think she really made a mark in that way. Well, in the 1976 campaign, those of you who were around for youll remember the big question was, jimmy who . And were going to show you a bit of a campaign ad that the Carter Campaign put together that picked up on this theme and involves rosalynn. In the final days, a group of georgia supporters, often referred to as carters peanut brigade, flew in to new hampshire. Hello. Are you mrs. Kyle . Yes, yes, yes. Im dot petty, and im a volunteer from plains, georgia. If we had snow on the ground like this, wed be paralyzed for a week. We couldnt get out of the house. Her schedule was grueling, almost as tough as her husbands. Yet, through it all, rosalynn remained an earnest and gracious campaigner. People ask me every day, how can you stand for your husband to be in politics and everybody know everything you do . And i just tell them, that we were born and raised and still live in plains, georgia. It has a population of 683, and everybody has always known everything i did. laughter and jim has never had any hint of scandal in his personal life or his public life. I really believe he can restore that honesty, integrity, openness, confidence in government that we so sorely need in our country today. I think hell be a great president. Grace hale, what was happening in the country in 1976 that these outsiders from georgia, who had not mounted a National Campaign before, appealed to the public . Well, i think that a lot of things are intersecting in interesting ways to help carter and first lady, rosalynn, in their rise in national politics. I mean, on the one hand, you have the failures of the Mcgovern Campaign and theres no interest in repeating that amongst democratic officials. They want a candidate thats not going to, in their minds, be able to be sort of pigeonholed as representing a certain kind of liberal or left part of the Democratic Party. Carter, with his, you know, southern roots, his smalltown background, they think hes going to appeal to people who wouldnt vote for mcgovern or might be alienated from that part of the Democratic Party. Also, i think that hes a really interesting candidate because he is from the south, and yet he is publicly speaking out in support of integration, in support of the gains of the Civil Rights Movement up until to that point, and that also really helps to create a kind of momentum behind them. Hes seen as a candidate who can bridge a lot of different divides, sort of draw in a lot of different people. That video references the peanut brigade. Who were the peanut brigade and what was rosalynns role in that . Well, they were mainly friends of the carters from georgia who went to other states to campaign. And it was, of course, very impressive when they went into the snowbound streets of new hampshire. These georgians are not used to the snowy weather, but the advantage the peanut brigade had is they personally knew the carters. So when youre going up to a voter and saying, im asking you to vote for somebody that i personally know, that carries a lot of weight. And people would wear the gold peanut pins. And with the nixons scandals surrounding watergate, i think the idea of running as an outsider worked in 1976 in a way that it might not have worked in other years, but it was the right campaign for the right time. Well, it really became the kind of standard way in which candidates would run after that. So i think in that way, too, its very interesting that running as an outsider. What else could carter do, being from a small town in south georgia, but run as an outsider to washington . But it became a model for future campaigns. I mean, the Nixon Campaign does the silent majority as the majority, right . Somebody is representing most americans. After that, you see many, many politicians running as outsiders, george bush, the second george bush, ran in interesting ways as a kind of outsider, drawing on his experiences in texas. So it became a kind of model for the future. And we should say, not only friends, but the family the Carter Family, mrs. Carter, the sons, the mrs. Carters motherinlaw, all very much involved in making this a family affair. Yes. As grace mentioned, up to this point, people hadnt really figured out that they had to get outside of washington. So not only did you have jimmy carter getting outside of washington, but the whole family. One of my favorite stories from mrs. Carter was she and her friend edna langford, would go around the states and i think rosalynn spent like 75 days in florida. And they would go into a small town and theyd look for the tallest antenna in town, because they figured that was probably a radio station. And then theyd drive up and say, would you like to interview us . And they would actually bring a sheet of questions that they could ask. So it was a very low budget campaign, but in that particular year, under the finance laws of that time, that was the way to do it. They actually stayed in peoples houses when they campaigned, all the different Carter Family members. And i think thats really, you know, a very different way of campaigning than we see now, staying with people in the various small towns. They visited all over the country. Certain president ial candidates still do that in iowa and new hampshire, but after that, it gets its pretty big, too large to do. But let me ask you a bit about the learning the mechanics of a political science, as it were, because again, theyve had only a little bit of experience in this. When you read the biographies, their systematic approach to learning the mechanics is interesting. What im thinking about was that she would number president carters jokes so he wouldnt tell them to the same audiences, that she took memory classes, so that they would be able, as campaigners, to remember peoples faces and names. Would you talk about that aspect of their approach to politics . Yes. I think both of the carters really believe in doing your homework. So, like he would read gary harts book on the 1972 campaign to find out what went right, what went wrong. And she would take meticulous notes. And when they ran for reelection in 1979 and80, she pulled out all of these notes from the 1975 and76 campaigns of just the names and the phone numbers of everybody. So they sort of started off knowing that they didnt know how to do this, theyd never run for president before. But they did their homework and that was kind of a trait of the family. And they would come home on sundays so that they were always on the same page, the family members wouldnt all be off saying Different Things. Theyd come back and compare notes on sunday and then theyd head back out to the field, and it was a very powerful combination. I cant believe the work schedule that she had during that campaign very little sleep and was visiting multiple towns in a day. And i guess growing up on a farm, you learn how to put in long days, but she was willing to make that kind of commitment. Whats great about this series is your involvement. And wed welcome that tonight as well. You can send us an email, and you can sorry, not an email but you can send us a tweet firstladies, and you can also join our facebook conversation, its facebook and the cspan site on there. And thats already underway. People are posting questions, and well get to as many of those as we can. And you can also call us, 2025853880, if you live in the eastern or central time zones, 2025853881 if youre mountain, pacific, or even farther west, and we welcome the conversation. Well, allegheny tableaux on twitter asked, did rosalynn work before becoming a fulltime politicians wife . Where was she educated . Were going to learn about that next. Were going to visit the town of plains, georgia. How big is plains . About 600 people, small town. When she was there, it was dirt roads. Now, the roads are paved, but it doesnt look that much different today than it did back then. And theyre probably surprised they ended back up in plains, because when they were young, their goal was to get out of small town. Well, lets learn more about their early years by visiting plains in this video. begin video clip not much has changed here in plains, georgia, since the president and mrs. Carter grew up here in the20s and30s. If we were to take away this asphalt street here in front of the stores and have a dirt road right in front of them, it will look very similar to a photograph of plains circa 1925. The Rosalynn Smith carter story begins here at this house. She lived here with her mom and dad, two brothers and a sister. And one of her favorite memories of this house is when her dad would come home from work, go into the kitchen and meet her mother, give her a big hug, swing her around the Kitchen Floor there and give her a kiss. Rosalynn carter lost her father at a very young age, and jimmy carters mother, ms. Lillian, helped take care of mr. Edgar throughout his illness. She was a trained nurse here in plains. And on the night of his passing, actually took young Rosalynn Smith out to the jimmy carter farm to be with jimmy carters sister, ruth. This is the jimmy carter boyhood farm, and its important to ms. Rosalynns story because she would have spent a lot of time out here with president carters sister, ruth. This is the room of jimmy carters sisters, ruth and gloria. And when Rosalynn Carter came out to see her friend ruth, this is where they would hang out together, play games, do homework and just enjoy each others company. Surely, when ms. Rosalynn was out visiting president carters sister, she would have seen a young jimmy carter and had many interactions with him. This is Plains High School. This is where Rosalynn Smith carter and jimmy carter would have attended first through the 11th grade. Her first memory of going to school here is she made straight as at first quarter. And she went home and she showed her dad, edgar smith, and her mom, ms. Allie, the straight as, and she they were so proud of her, her dad gave her a dollar for her accomplishments. Later on, in the 7th grade, a local businessman had a contest for the student who had the best grade point average throughout the year and whoever had that grade point average, he would give them 5. And in 1920s and30s, thats quite a bit of money. And after 7th grade year, ms. Rosalynn had won that 5 from the local businessman. One of the activities that Rosalynn Carter would have been engaged in was basketball. She was so excited when she made the Varsity Basketball Team here. We have a picture of her in her uniform and her Plains High School leather jacket, and i think it was a very good accomplishment for ms. Rosalynn at the time. This is the plains United Methodist church, and its right here on these steps where president carter asked ms. Rosalynn out on a date for the first time. Its also here where they got married. So its a very special place for president and mrs. Carter, and a special place for plains. end video clip so theres a look at some of the early life in plains, georgia. Im going to let regina crumkey on twitter asked the question, how did rosalynn and jimmy meet . Well, as the park ranger, steve theus, said, they probably saw each other from a distance because rosalynn was a friend of ruth, his sister, but they seemed not to pay much attention to her. But as they got older and it became known he was going to go into the navy and travel around the world. I think she started to focus on him. And then, the first date they had which probably when she was about 17 and he was about 20, he went home and told his mother that he was going to marry rosalynn after the first date. It took him a while to convince her to marry him because she felt she was too young even though she was quite smitten with him. So they until this event happened, apparently they hadnt, you know, run into each other, but they were three years apart, which may be the reason. She married at him at 19 . Yes. Yes, so she was a young bride. Was she ever able to finish college . She has, i think an Associates Degree from georgia southwestern. And, you know, that school is very important. Her mother went to that school, and today, the school has a Caregiving Program named after her and shes very active in that school so. Grace, i want to ask the second part of regina crumkeys question, where they both of the same religion as a launching point to talk about, safe and rel