Former Presidents George Bush, left, and Jimmy Carter, right, stand with President Clinton during a kick-off rally for the President’s volunteer summit at Marcus Foster Stadium in Philadelphia, PA., April 27, 1997. (AP Photo/Greg Gibson, File)
TV, radio and presidential maps
NBC first debuted a red-and-blue electoral map in the 1976 election between then-President Gerald Ford, a Republican, and Carter, the Democratic challenger. But NBC’s John Chancellor made Carter’s states red and Ford’s blue. Some other early versions of color electoral maps used yellow and blue because red was associated with Soviet and Chinese communism.
It wasn’t until the 1990s that networks settled on blue for Democratic-won states and red for GOP-won states. “Red state” and “blue state” did not become a permanent part of the American political lexicon until after the disputed 2000 election between Al Gore and George W. Bush.
Carter was 14 when Franklin D. Roosevelt made the first presidential television appearance. Warren Harding became the first radio president two years before Carter’s birth.
College student Chuck McManis watches President Jimmy Carter’s nationally televised energy speech from a service station in Los Angeles, as a gas station attendant fills up a customer’s car, July 15, 1979. (AP Photo/Mao, File)
Attention Kmart shoppers
There was no Amazon Prime in 1924, but you could order a build-it-yourself house from a catalog. Sears Roebuck Gladstone’s three-bedroom model went for $2,025, which was slightly less than the average worker’s annual income.
Walmart didn’t exist, but local general stores served the same purpose. Ballpark prices: loaf of bread, 9 cents; gallon of milk, 54 cents; gallon of gas, 11 cents.
Inflation helped drive Carter from office, as it has dogged President Joe Biden. The average gallon in 1980, Carter’s last full year in office, was about $3.25 when adjusted for inflation. That’s just 3 cents more than AAA’s current national average.
Former President Jimmy Carter, right, and Atlanta Braves team owner Ted Turner, left, watch early play during Game 6 of the National League Championship Series in Atlanta, Oct. 14, 1998. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan, File)
From suffragettes to Kamala Harris
The 19th Amendment that extended voting rights to women — almost exclusively white women at the time — was ratified in 1920, four years before Carter’s birth. The Voting Rights Act that widened the franchise to Black Americans passed in 1965 as Carter was preparing his first bid for Georgia governor.
Now, Carter is poised to cast a mail ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris. She would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of South Asian descent to reach the Oval Office. Grandson Jason Carter said the former president is holding on in part because he is excited about the chance to see Harris make history.
Former President Jimmy Carter pulls notes out of his pocket before delivering remarks during a ceremony commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, Aug. 28, 2013. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
Immigration, isolationism and ‘America First’
For all the shifts in U.S. politics, some things stay the same. Or at least come back around.
Carter was born in an era of isolationism, protectionism and white Christian nationalism — all elements of the right in the ongoing Donald Trump era. In 2024, Trump is promising the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, while tightening legal immigration. He has said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country.”
Five months before Carter was born, President Calvin Coolidge signed the Immigration Act of 1924. The law created the U.S. Border Patrol and sharply curtailed immigration, limiting admission mostly to migrants from western Europe. Asians were banned entirely. Congress described its purpose plainly: “preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity.” The Ku Klux Klan followed in 1925 and 1926 with marches on Washington promoting white supremacy.
Trump also has called for sweeping tariffs on foreign imports, part of his “America First” agenda. In 1922, Congress enacted tariffs intended to help U.S. manufacturers. After stock market losses in 1929, lawmakers added the 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariffs, ostensibly to help American farmers. The Great Depression followed anyway. In the 1930s, as Carter became politically aware, the political right that countered FDR was driven in part by a movement that opposed international engagement. Those conservatives’ slogan: “America First.”
Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter, right, and Delaware Gov. Sherman Tribbitt say hello to Atlanta Braves Hank Aaron, left, following a rain canceled game with the Los Angeles Dodgers in Atlanta, Ga., Sept. 27, 1973. (AP Photo, File)
America’s and Carter’s pastime
Carter is the Atlanta Braves’ most famous fan. Jason Carter says the former president still enjoys watching his favorite baseball team.
In the 1990s, when the Braves were annual features in the October playoffs, Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were often spotted in the owner’s box with media mogul Ted Turner and Jane Fonda, then Turner’s wife. The Braves moved to Atlanta from Milwaukee between Carter’s failed run for governor in 1966 and his victory four years later. Then-Gov. Carter was sitting in the first row of Atlanta Fulton-County Stadium on April 9, 1974, when Henry Aaron hit his 715th home run to break Babe Ruth’s career record.
When Carter was born, the Braves were still in Boston, their original city. Ruth had just completed his fifth season for the New York Yankees. He had hit 284 home runs to that point (still 430 short of his career total) and the original Yankee Stadium — “The House that Ruth Built” — had been open less than 18 months.
Booze, Billy and Billy Beer
Prohibition had been in effect for four years when Carter was born and wouldn’t be lifted until he was 9. The Carters were never prodigious drinkers. They served only wine at state dinners and other White House functions, though it’s a common misconception that they did so because of their Baptist mores. It was more because Carter has always been frugal: He didn’t want taxpayers or the residence account (his and Rosalynn’s personal money) to cover more expensive hard liquor.
Carter’s younger brother Billy, who owned a Plains gas station and died in 1988, had different tastes. He marketed his own brand, Billy Beer, once Carter became president. News sources reported that Billy Carter snagged a $50,000 annual licensing fee from one brewer. That’s about $215,000 today. The president’s annual salary at the time was $200,000 — it’s now $400,000.
The debt: More Carter frugality
The Times Square debt clock didn’t debut until Carter was in his early 60s and out of the White House. But for anyone counting the $35 trillion debt, Carter doesn’t merit much mention. The man who would wash Ziploc bags to reuse them added less than $300 billion to the national debt, which stood below $1 trillion when he left office.
Other presidents
Carter has lived through 40% of U.S. history since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and more than a third of all U.S. administrations since George Washington took office in 1789 — nine before Carter was president, his own and seven since.
When Carter took office, just one president, John Adams, had lived to be 90. Since then, Ford, Ronald Reagan, Carter and George H.W. Bush all reached at least 93.
By BILL BARROW/Associated Press
Bill Barrow covers U.S. politics. He is based in Atlanta.
Follow Barrow at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP
Source link : http://www.bing.com/news/apiclick.aspx?ref=FexRss&aid=&tid=66fac5a2cb764a678f6ce97fef2fb97d&url=https%3A%2F%2Fvifreepress.com%2Fjimmy-carter-at-100-a-century-of-changes-for-a-president-the-us-and-the-world-since-1924%2F&c=2578788403809209926&mkt=en-us
Author :
Publish date : 2024-09-28 01:30:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
