First Lady of The United States
In January 1977, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter walked hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue during his presidential inauguration parade. For the inaugural balls, she wore the same gown she had worn six years earlier at the balls in Atlanta when her husband became governor.
During her husband's administration, Carter supported her husband's public policies, as well as his social and personal life. In order to remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. She represented him in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, most notably as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. Carter also led a delegation to Thailand in 1979 to address the problems of Cambodian and Laotian refugees. Helping the refugees, particularly the children, became a special cause for her. 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.
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 the Congress (the first being Eleanor Roosevelt). In addition, Carter was a strong proponent of the Equal Rights Amendment.
She 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 is "Dancer".
Read more about this topic: Rosalynn Carter
Famous quotes containing the words united states, lady, united and/or states:
“It was evident that, both on account of the feudal system and the aristocratic government, a private man was not worth so much in Canada as in the United States; and, if your wealth in any measure consists in manliness, in originality and independence, you had better stay here. How could a peaceable, freethinking man live neighbor to the Forty-ninth Regiment? A New-Englander would naturally be a bad citizen, probably a rebel, there,—certainly if he were already a rebel at home.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Quoth she, “I have loved thee, Little Musgrave,
Full long and many a day;”
“So have I loved you, faire lady,
Yet never a word durst I say.”
“I have a bower at Bucklesfordbery,
Full daintyly it is deight;
If thou wilt wend thither, thou Little Musgrave,
Thou’s lig in mine armes all night.””
—Unknown. Little Musgrave and Lady Barnard (l. 17–24)
“Television is an excellent system when one has nothing to lose, as is the case with a nomadic and rootless country like the United States, but in Europe the affect of television is that of a bulldozer which reduces culture to the lowest possible denominator.”
—Marc Fumaroli (b. 1932)
“An ... important antidote to American democracy is American gerontocracy. The positions of eminence and authority in Congress are allotted in accordance with length of service, regardless of quality. Superficial observers have long criticized the United States for making a fetish of youth. This is unfair. Uniquely among modern organs of public and private administration, its national legislature rewards senility.”
—John Kenneth Galbraith (b. 1908)