Happy birthday, President Carter! (Jeri Rowland/HowStuffWorks 2009)

Sarah and I spent a gorgeous Thursday at the Carter Center for the reopening of the museum and library, along with Mayor Shirley Franklin, Gov. Sonny Perdue, the Rev. Joseph Lowery and former Vice President Walter Mondale. (Adorable little Carters also made an appearance.)

I’d never been to the museum before (shameful, I know, for an Atlantan). Being a history nerd, I was pretty excited.

As we walked through the exhibits and the model Oval Office and past the video and touch screens, what kept catching my eye were the relics of everyday life — the peanut mugs, the presents given to Mrs. Carter and Amy, the campaign buttons. My favorite may have been Rosalynn Carter’s calendar, with handwritten notes of departures for Geneva and lunches with important people.

When Candace was working on How the First Lady Works, we’d talked about the different public faces of the office of first lady — how some are active in the political aspects of the administration, while others enjoy being the nation’s hostess, as the role is often described. The more I read at the museum, the more I realized I knew Rosalynn Carter as a strong supporter of mental health initiatives, but I didn’t know much else.

Carter was considered the most politically active first lady since Eleanor Roosevelt (another woman I have a soft spot for), as well as one of the most politically astute. She was the the first first lady (got that?) to make her own campaign promise, and Jimmy Carter has spoken many times about how Rosalynn is and was his trusted political adviser. I also didn’t know that she was such a strong supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment, dear to my feminist heart. In her autobiography, “First Lady from Plains,” she says:

First Ladies throughout our history have been expected to be adoring wives and perfect mothers, to manage the public and social aspects of the White House to the satisfaction of all critics, and to participate in “appropriate public service.” The role of First Lady is a difficult–and sometimes nearly impossible–one to fill…

I think that’s a sentiment any woman can identify with.

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