- published: 09 Nov 2010
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Eleanor Rosalynn Carter (née Smith; August 18, 1927) is the wife of the 39th President of the United States, Jimmy Carter and in that capacity served as the First Lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981. She has for decades been a leading advocate for numerous causes, perhaps most prominently for mental health research. She was politically active during her White House years, sitting in on Cabinet and policy meetings as well as serving as her husband's closest adviser. She also served as an envoy abroad, to Latin America in particular.
Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born on August 18, 1927 in Plains, Georgia, the eldest of four children of Wilburn Edgar Smith (1896–1940), an automobile mechanic and farmer and Allethea "Allie" Murray Smith (1905–2000), a dressmaker. Her brothers were William Jerrold "Jerry" Smith (May 5, 1929 – November 20, 2003), an engineer, and Murray Lee Smith (January 19, 1932 – January 26, 2003), a teacher and minister. Her sister, Lillian Allethea Wall, formerly Smith (born November 10, 1936), is a real estate broker. Rosalynn was named after Rosa, her mother's mother. Carter claimed that she and her siblings were unaware that they were in poverty, since even though their family "didn't have money," neither did "anyone else, so as far as we knew, we were well off." At the center of her family's community were churches and schools, and the people of Plains had familiarity with each other. Carter played with boys during her early childhood since no girls on her street were the same age as she. She believed that she would become an architect, since she drew buildings and was interested in airplanes.
Oprah Gail Winfrey, born January 29, 1954, is an American media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show The Oprah Winfrey Show, which was the highest-rated program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011. Dubbed the "Queen of All Media", she has been ranked the richest African-American of the 20th century, the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and is now North America's first and only multi-billionaire Black. Several assessments regard her as the most influential woman in the world. In 2013, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama and honorary doctorate degrees from Duke and Harvard.
Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She has stated that she was molested during her childhood and early teens and became pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime-talk-show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place, she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.