Carter served in the navy, where he worked with Admiral Hyman G. Rickover in developing the nuclear submarine program. Resigning his commission (1953) after his father's death, he ran his family's peanut farm, which he built into a prosperous business. In 1962 he was elected as a Democrat to the first of two terms in the Georgia Senate. He ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1966, then succeeded in 1970, replacing Lester Maddox. As governor, Carter proclaimed that the time had come to end racial discrimination and formed alliances with such civil-rights leaders as Andrew Young.

Although little known outside Georgia, Carter announced that he would run for president at the end of his gubernatorial term, and through sustained and diligent campaigning won the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination. With Minnesota Senator Walter F. Mondale as his running mate, Carter defeated incumbent President Gerald R. Ford. But Carter never established good relations with Congress and, with Republican successes in the 1978 midterm elections, his difficulties increased.

In foreign policy, Carter had some initial success. He secured congressional ratification—by a single vote after extended and rancorous debate—of his two Panama Canal treaties (1977), establishing a timetable for passing control of the canal to Panama. Then, in 1979, at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, Carter personally persuaded Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt and Menachem Begin of Israel to sign the first peace treaty between Israel and an Arab state (see Camp David accords).

Although he and Leonid Brezhnev signed the Salt II treaty (see disarmament, nuclear), it had uncertain chances for Senate ratification, and Carter shelved the treaty in Jan., 1980, as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (see Afghanistan War). When the USSR refused to withdraw, Carter also initiated a trade embargo and a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympic Games. In the last year of his administration, Carter's foreign policy was overshadowed by the Iran hostage crisis, in which Iranian students invaded the U.S. embassy in Tehran, taking 55 hostages. When attempts to negotiate their release failed, Carter authorized a military rescue mission in Apr., 1980, that failed ignominiously.

Domestically, Carter had difficulties controlling inflation, which rose in each year of his administration—in part because of oil price increases after the Iranian revolution. The Federal Reserve Board's drastic remedies for curtailing inflation led to interest rates of more than 20% by 1980. Inflation and the unresolved hostage crisis put Carter in a weak position as the 1980 presidential election campaign began. He won the Democratic nomination only after a bitter challenge from Sen. Edward Kennedy. In the general election he was decisively defeated by Ronald Reagan.

Since leaving office, Carter has been active in international human-rights efforts, often as an impartial observer of first-time free elections. He has served as an international mediator in North Korea, Haiti, Bosnia, Venezuela, and elsewhere, and has worked to focus world attention on epidemics in Africa. He made a highly publicized trip to Cuba in May, 2002, becoming the most prominent American to visit the nation since Castro came to power. The Carter Center in Atlanta, founded in 1986, became an important arena for the discussion of international affairs. Carter also has been deeply involved with Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization that helps working-class people in North America and abroad build and finance new homes. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his efforts to advance peace, democracy, human rights, and economic and social development.

Jimmy Carter married Rosalynn Smith in 1946; they have four children. During his term of office Carter published Why Not the Best? (1975) and A Government as Good as Its People (1977). After it, he wrote more than a dozen works of poetry and nonfiction, including The Blood of Abraham (1985); Everything to Gain (1987, written with his wife); Turning Point (1992); The Hornet's Nest (2003), a novel set in the South during the Revolutionary War; and Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid (2006), which some critics accused of one-sided, anti-Israeli views.

The Carters' style was marked by close harmonies, by Sara's autoharp, and by "Mother" Maybelle's distinctive guitar-picking style, later adopted by many folk and country artists. Among their best-known songs are Wildwood Flower, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, and Wabash Cannonball. While the so-called Original Carter Family disbanded in 1943 (seven years after Sara divorced A. P.), later Carters followed in their tradition; Maybelle continued to perform into the 1960s along with her daughters Helen (1927-98), Anita (1933-99), and June (1929-2003), who was married to and often sang with Johnny Cash. Today, A. P. and Sara's children Janette and Joe both sing country music, notably at the Carter Family Memorial Music Center in Hiltons, Va. (est. 1979). The Carter Family was elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1970.

(born Dec. 19, 1875, New Canton, Va., U.S.—died April 3, 1950, Washington, D.C.) U.S. historian. Born into a poor family, he supported himself as a coal miner and was unable to enroll in high school until he was 20. He went on to receive a Ph.D. from Harvard University. In 1915 he founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History to encourage the study of African American history; he also edited the association's Journal of Negro History. In the early 1920s he founded Associated Publishers to bring out books on African American life and culture. Among his works was the college text The Negro in Our History (1922).

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(born Jan. 4, 1858, Lynchburg, Va., U.S.—died May 28, 1946, Washington, D.C.) U.S. politician. Largely self-educated, he pursued a successful career in journalism, eventually becoming proprietor of two Lynchburg newspapers. In the U.S. House of Representatives (1902–18), he sponsored legislation that established the Federal Reserve System. As secretary of the treasury (1918–20) he supported efforts by Pres. Woodrow Wilson to bring the U.S. into the League of Nations. Appointed, then elected, to the U.S. Senate (1920–46), he became a leader of the conservative Southern Democratic bloc. An expert on monetary policy, he coauthored legislation that established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in 1933. Though he supported Franklin Roosevelt for president in 1932, he soon became one of his sharpest critics.

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