Already the longest-lived of the 45 males to function U.S. president, Jimmy Carter reached the century mark.
The thirty ninth president, who stays below dwelling hospice care, turns 100 on Tuesday, Oct. 1, celebrating in the identical south Georgia city the place he was born in 1924.
Listed below are some notable markers for Carter, the nation, and the world over his lengthy life.
Booms most in all places—however not Plains
Carter has seen the U.S. inhabitants almost triple. The U.S. has about 330 million residents; there have been about 114 million in 1924 and 220 million when Carter was inaugurated in 1977. The worldwide inhabitants has greater than quadrupled, from 1.9 billion to greater than 8.1 billion. It already had greater than doubled to 4.36 billion by the point he turned president.
That increase has not reached Plains, the place Carter has lived greater than 80 of his 100 years. His spouse Rosalynn, who died in 2023 at age 96, additionally was born in Plains.
Their city comprised fewer than 500 individuals within the Nineteen Twenties and has about 700 as we speak; a lot of the native economic system revolves round its most well-known residents.
When James Earl Carter Jr. was born, life expectancy for American males was 58. It is now 75.
TV, radio, and presidential maps
NBC first debuted a red-and-blue electoral map within the 1976 election between then-President Gerald Ford, a Republican, and Carter, the Democratic challenger. However NBC’s John Chancellor made Carter’s states purple and Ford’s blue. Another early variations of colour electoral maps used yellow and blue as a result of purple was related to Soviet and Chinese language communism.
It wasn’t till the Nineteen Nineties that networks settled on blue for Democratic-won states and purple for GOP-won states. “Crimson state” and “blue state” didn’t develop into a everlasting a part of the American political lexicon till after the disputed 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Carter was 14 when Franklin D. Roosevelt made the primary presidential tv look. Warren Harding turned the primary radio president two years earlier than Carter’s start.
Consideration buyers
There was no Amazon Prime in 1924, however you would order a build-it-yourself home from a catalog. Sears Roebuck Gladstone’s three-bedroom mannequin went for $2,025, which was barely lower than the typical employee’s annual earnings.
Walmart didn’t exist, however native basic shops served the identical function. Ballpark costs: loaf of bread, 9 cents; gallon of milk, 54 cents; gallon of fuel, 11 cents.
Inflation helped drive Carter from workplace, because it has dogged President Joe Biden. The typical gallon in 1980, Carter’s final full yr in workplace, was about $3.25 when adjusted for inflation. That is simply 3 cents greater than AAA’s present nationwide common.
From suffragettes to Kamala Harris
The nineteenth Modification that prolonged voting rights to girls—virtually solely white girls on the time—was ratified in 1920, 4 years earlier than Carter’s start. The Voting Rights Act that widened the franchise to Black People handed in 1965 as Carter was getting ready his first bid for Georgia governor.
Now, Carter is poised to forged a mail poll for Vice President Kamala Harris. She would develop into the primary lady, first Black lady, and first particular person of South Asian descent to achieve the Oval Workplace. Grandson Jason Carter stated the previous president is holding on partly as a result of he’s excited in regards to the likelihood to see Harris make historical past.
Immigration, isolationism and ‘America First’
For all of the shifts in U.S. politics, some issues keep the identical. Or at the least come again round.
Carter was born in an period of isolationism, protectionism and white Christian nationalism—all components of the proper within the ongoing Donald Trump period. In 2024, Trump is promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. historical past, whereas tightening authorized immigration. He has stated immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
5 months earlier than Carter was born, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The legislation created the U.S. Border Patrol and sharply curtailed immigration, limiting admission principally to migrants from western Europe. Asians had been banned completely. Congress described its function plainly: “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” The Ku Klux Klan adopted in 1925 and 1926 with marches on Washington selling white supremacy.
Trump additionally has referred to as for sweeping tariffs on international imports, a part of his “America First” agenda. In 1922, Congress enacted tariffs meant to assist U.S. producers. After inventory market losses in 1929, lawmakers added the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, ostensibly to assist American farmers. The Nice Melancholy adopted anyway. Within the Thirties, as Carter turned politically conscious, the political proper that countered FDR was pushed partly by a motion that opposed worldwide engagement. These conservatives’ slogan: “America First.”
America’s and Carter’s pastime
Carter is the Atlanta Braves’ most well-known fan. Jason Carter says the previous president nonetheless enjoys watching his favourite baseball workforce.
Within the Nineteen Nineties, when the Braves had been annual options within the October playoffs, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter had been usually noticed within the proprietor’s field with media mogul Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, then Turner’s spouse. The Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee between Carter’s failed run for governor in 1966 and his victory 4 years later. Then-Gov. Carter was sitting within the first row of Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium on April 9, 1974, when Henry Aaron hit his 715th dwelling run to interrupt Babe Ruth’s profession report.
When Carter was born, the Braves had been nonetheless in Boston, their unique metropolis. Ruth had simply accomplished his fifth season for the New York Yankees. He had hit 284 dwelling runs to that time (nonetheless 430 in need of his profession complete) and the unique Yankee Stadium—“The Home that Ruth Constructed”—had been open lower than 18 months.
Booze, Billy, and Billy Beer
Prohibition had been in impact for 4 years when Carter was born and wouldn’t be lifted till he was 9. The Carters had been by no means prodigious drinkers. They served solely wine at state dinners and different White Home features, although it is a widespread false impression that they did so due to their Baptist mores. It was extra as a result of Carter has all the time been frugal: He did not need taxpayers or the residence account (his and Rosalynn’s private cash) to cowl costlier arduous liquor.
Carter’s youthful brother Billy, who owned a Plains fuel station and died in 1988, had totally different tastes. He marketed his personal model, Billy Beer, as soon as Carter turned president. Information sources reported that Billy Carter snagged a $50,000 annual licensing payment from one brewer. That is about $215,000 as we speak. The president’s annual wage on the time was $200,000—it is now $400,000.
The debt: Extra Carter frugality
The Occasions Sq. debt clock didn’t debut till Carter was in his early 60s and out of the White Home. However for anybody counting the $35 trillion debt, Carter doesn’t advantage a lot point out. The person who would wash Ziploc luggage to reuse them added lower than $300 billion to the nationwide debt, which stood under $1 trillion when he left workplace.
Different presidents
Carter has lived by means of 40% of U.S. historical past because the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and greater than a 3rd of all U.S. administrations since George Washington took workplace in 1789—9 earlier than Carter was president, his personal and 7 since.
When Carter took workplace, simply two presidents, John Adams and Herbert Hoover, had lived to be 90. Since then, Ford, Ronald Reagan, Carter, and George H.W. Bush all reached at the least 93.
