Eleanor Rosalynn Carter ( ; née Smith; born August 18, 1927) is an American writer and activist who served as the first lady of the United States from 1977 to 1981 as the wife of President Jimmy Carter. For decades, she has been a leading advocate for numerous causes, including mental health.

Carter was born and raised in Plains, Georgia, graduated as salutatorian of Plains High School, and soon after attended Georgia Southwestern College, and graduated in 1946. She first became attracted to her husband after seeing a picture of him in his Annapolis uniform, and they married in 1946. Carter helped her husband win the governorship of Georgia in 1970, and decided to focus her attention in the field of mental health when she was that state's first lady. She campaigned for her husband during his successful bid to become President of the United States in the 1976 election, defeating incumbent Republican President Gerald Ford.

Carter was politically active during her husband's presidency, though declared that she had no intention of being a traditional first lady. During her husband's administration, Carter supported her husband's public policies as well as his social and personal life. In order to remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. Carter also represented her husband in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, including as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. He found her to be an equal partner. She campaigned for his re-election bid in the 1980 election, which he lost to Republican Ronald Reagan.

Since leaving the White House in 1981, Carter has continued to advocate for mental health and other causes, and has written several books. She and her husband have contributed to the expansion of the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity. Aged , Carter is the second-longest-lived first lady after Bess Truman, and is the longest-married first lady. She and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.

Early life

Eleanor Rosalynn Smith was born on August 18, 1927, in Plains, Georgia. She was the eldest of four children of Wilburn Edgar Smith, an auto mechanic, bus driver and farmer, and Frances Allethea "Allie" Murray Smith, a teacher, dressmaker and postal worker. Her brothers were William Jerrold "Jerry" Smith (1929–2003), an engineer, and Murray Lee Smith (1932–2003), a teacher and minister. Her sister, Lillian Allethea (Smith) Wall (born 1936), known as Allethea, named for her mother and for Lillian Gordy Carter (Smith and Carter families being friends), is a real estate broker. Rosalynn was named after Rosa Wise Murray, her maternal grandmother. Smith's grand-uncle W.S. Wise was one of the American Brazilians known as Confederados who emigrated from the United States to Brazil after the Civil War.

Smith's family lived in poverty, although she later claimed that she and her siblings were unaware, since even though their family "didn't have money," neither did "anyone else, so as far as we knew, we were well off." Churches and schools were at the center of her family's community, and the people of Plains were familiar with each other. Smith played with the boys during her early childhood since no girls on her street were her age. She drew buildings and was interested in airplanes, which led her to believe that she would someday become an architect.

Rosalynn's father died of leukemia when she was 13 in 1940. She called the loss of her father the conclusion of her childhood. Thereafter, she helped her mother raise her younger siblings, as well as assisting in the dressmaking business in order to meet the family's financial obligations. Rosalynn would credit her mother with inspiring her own independence and said that she learned from her mother that "you can do what you have to do". At Plains High School, Rosalynn worked hard to achieve her father's dream of seeing her go to college. Rosalynn graduated as salutatorian of Plains High School. Soon after, she attended Georgia Southwestern College and graduated in 1946.

Rosalynn first dated Jimmy Carter in 1945 while he was attending the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. She became attracted to him after seeing a picture of him in his Annapolis uniform. The two were riding in the back seat of the car of Ruth Carter Stapleton's boyfriend when Jimmy surprised Rosalynn by kissing her. This was the first time that Rosalynn had ever allowed a boy to do so on the first date. Rosalynn agreed to marry Jimmy in February 1946 when she went to Annapolis with his parents. The two scheduled their marriage to take place in July and kept the arrangement secret. Rosalynn resisted telling her mother she had chosen to marry instead of continuing her education. On July 7, 1946, they married in Plains. The marriage canceled Rosalynn's plans to attend Georgia State College for Women, where she had planned to study interior design. The couple had four children: John William "Jack" (b. 1947), James Earl "Chip" III (b. 1950), Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" (b. 1952), and Amy Lynn (b. 1967).

Politics

First Lady of Georgia
After helping her husband win the governorship of Georgia in 1970, Rosalynn decided to focus her attention in the field of mental health when she was that state's First Lady. It was her main focus. She was appointed to the Governor's Commission to Improve Services for the Mentally and Emotionally Handicapped. Many of the Commission's recommendations were approved and became law. In August 1971, Carter engaged in a statewide tour of mental health facilities across Georgia. She has described her efforts for mentally disabled children her proudest achievement as First Lady of Georgia.

Carter also served as a volunteer at the Georgia Regional Hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, and for four years was honorary chairperson for the Georgia Special Olympics.

Among wives of Georgia legislators, she was considered a model and was revered for her traits and appearance. Her activities included entertaining as many as 75 people a week at the Governor's Mansion. Governor Carter once claimed that he had supported the Equal Rights Amendment while his wife was opposed to the measure, the First Lady privately confronting him upon hearing news of the claim.

1976 presidential campaign
When her husband's gubernatorial term ended in January 1975, Rosalynn, Jimmy and Amy Carter returned to Plains. Jimmy had already announced his plans to run for President of the United States. Rosalynn returned to the campaign trail, this time on a national quest to gather support for her husband. She campaigned alone on his behalf in 41 states. Because of her husband's obscurity at the time, she often had to answer the question, "Jimmy who?" She promoted the establishment of additional daycare facilities and adjustments to "Social Security and so many other things to help the elderly."

During the months when she was campaigning across the country, she was elected to the board of directors of the National Association of Mental Health, honored by the National Organization for Women with an Award of Merit for her vigorous support for the Equal Rights Amendment, and received the Volunteer of the Year Award from the Southwestern Association of Volunteer Services.

Rosalynn sat in the balcony at Madison Square Garden with friends and family the night of the nomination while her husband was with his mother and daughter. She had "butterflies in her stomach," until the Ohio delegation announced its votes were for her husband. Rosalynn wished she could have been with him at that time. The Carters met with all the potential running mates, and instantly gained affinity for Walter Mondale after meeting with him and his wife Joan. Following the election, the Carters traveled to the White House and met with President Ford and First Lady Betty Ford, the latter becoming a role model for Rosalynn.

First Lady of the United States (1977–1981)

Major initiatives

When her husband assumed the presidency in January 1977, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter walked hand-in-hand down Pennsylvania Avenue during his presidential inauguration parade. The gown that she wore to the inaugural balls was the same one that she had worn six years earlier at the Atlanta balls when Jimmy became governor.

Rosalynn declared that she had no intention of being a traditional First Lady of the United States. During her husband's administration, Rosalynn supported her husband's public policies as well as his social and personal life. In order to remain fully informed, she sat in on Cabinet meetings at the invitation of the President. The first meeting she attended was on February 28, 1977, where she felt comfortable since she was among other officials that were not members of the unit. The idea for her to be in attendance came from her husband's suggestion after she started to question him about a news story.

She wrote notes, but never spoke. As she put it, "I was there to be informed so that when I traveled across the country, which I did a great deal, and was questioned by the press and other individuals about all areas of government, I'd know what was going on." When the cultural exchange program Friendship Force International launched at the White House on March 1, 1977, she became honorary chairperson, a position she held until 2002. She joined Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford in supporting the unsuccessful campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) at the Houston conference celebrating the International Women's Year in 1977.

For Christmas 1977, she decorated the White House's Christmas tree with ornaments from pine cones, peanuts and egg shells. On July 27, 1978, Carter was the host of "First Lady's Employment Seminar". 200-300 delegates came and shared information to learn how other communities responded to unemployment. Rosalynn remembered 1979 and 1980 as years of never-ending crises, the years having "Big ones and small ones, potential disasters and mere annoyances."

During 1978, Carter became involved with an effort to reform D.C. General Hospital after criticizing the appearance of it, traveling to the hospital for reviews of changing conditions as more work was done in remodeling.

Despite finding time to entertain, the Carters never were able to match their immediate predecessors and Rosalynn never considered it a major part of her job as First Lady.
Criticism came towards her role as First Lady by a U.S. diplomat in Brazil, who insisted that women were meant to be kept "at home and that's all." The cultural factor had also caused many to oppose her trip. Critics called her too programmed and disciplined while others said she lacked admirable qualities of Lady Bird Johnson and Betty Ford. Despite this, Rosalynn was pleased by her viewed role as a demanding First Lady and remembered the times of presidents' wives being "confined" to "official hostess" and other demeaning roles. In efforts to advance the appearance of the White House, she accumulated American paintings.

After the Carter administration began losing popularity, Rosalynn advised Gerald Rafshoon be brought on as White House Director of Communications and have key media figures at the White House during "informal, off‐the‐record, deep discussions about issues." Rafshoon was selected and confirmed for the position.

Mental health campaign
In March 1977, Carter gave her first interview since becoming First Lady. She outlined her goals in focusing on mental health: "For every person who needs mental health care to be able to receive it close to his home, and to remove the stigma from mental health care so people will be free to talk about it and seek help. It's been taboo for so long to admit you had a mental health problem."

Rosalynn Carter served as an active honorary chair of the President's Commission on Mental Health. On behalf of the Mental Health System Bill, enacted in 1980, she testified before a Senate committee, the second First Lady to appear before the Congress (the first being Eleanor Roosevelt). Of her priorities, mental health was the highest. Working to change the nature of government assistance to the mentally ill, Carter wanted to allow people to be comfortable admitting their disabilities without fear of being called crazy.

Influence
After she had been in the office of First Lady for two years, Time magazine called her the "second most powerful person in the United States." Many times, Carter's husband called her an equal partner. He also said she was a "perfect extension of myself." During a 1977 interview, Carter admitted that she quarrelled with her husband over his policies but his own decision was what he acted on, and she denied influencing his major decisions. In an interview the following year, Carter stated that she did not publicly disagree with her husband's policies out of a belief that she "would lose all my effectiveness with him" as well as her opinion that the gesture would not assist in changing his perspective to her own. She outlined that a First Lady could influence officials or the public by discussing an issue or giving attention to it.

Biographer MaryAnne Borrelli wrote that Carter considered her attempts to portray herself as a traditional wife and influencing factor in her husband's administration would be "viewed by some as dependent upon her husband, by others as lacking accountability, and by still others as doing too little–or too much." Years after leaving the White House, Carter would remain bothered by claims that she exerted too much influence on her husband, insisting they had an equal partnership. Jimmy Carter would later write that the two engaged in discussions on a variety of issues and she was aware of everything within the administration apart from "a few highly secret and sensitive security matters".

Travels

Rosalynn represented President Carter in meetings with domestic and foreign leaders, most notably as an envoy to Latin America in 1977. She purposely scheduled so as not to have meetings with any of the heads of state. President Carter said that while his wife had initially been met with hesitance as an American representative, "at the conclusion of those meetings, they now rely on her substantially to be sure that I understand the sensitivities of the people." Following the Latin America meetings, David Vidal observed, "Mrs. Carter has achieved a personal and diplomatic success that goes far beyond the modest expectations of both her foreign policy tutors at the State Department and her hosts."

In a June 7, 1977 news conference, Carter stated that her meetings with Brazilian leaders included discussions on human rights and her wishes for Brazil to include itself among other countries seeking out a reduction in nuclear weapons via an international study. On December 30, 1977, Carter and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski met with Stefan Wyszyński at the Cardinal's Warsaw residence. President Carter said the meeting was intended to display American "appreciation for the degree of freedom of worship in the country."

Carter led the American delegation to the May 1978 inauguration of Rodrigo Carazo Odio as President of Costa Rica. In August 1978, Rosalynn led the American delegation to the funeral of Pope Paul VI in Rome.

Rosalynn also led a delegation to Thailand in 1979 to address the problems of Cambodian and Laotian refugees. She examined camps where Cambodian refugees had fled to avoid the combat between the Vietnamese troops and the government of Pol Pot.  Helping the refugees, particularly the children, became a special cause for her. She returned to the United States and played a prominent role in speeding up a large appeal for assistance after being affected by the suffering she witnessed during her visit. By the time she had returned, however, her husband met with families of the hostages in Iran. They were more concerned for what they needed to do to get them out over being worried about whether or not they would ever get out. Carter stated that she wanted to return to the US as quickly as possible to mobilize their forces to assist in calming the refugees' plight.

Life in the White House
She was the first First Lady to keep her own office in the East Wing. She also oversaw her family at the White House. Her daughter, Amy, attracted much public attention. The two youngest sons, Chip and Jeff, and their families also lived in the White House. Other members of the family, including son Jack and his wife and children, were frequent visitors. Rosalynn Carter's Secret Service codename was "Dancer". In 1977, Carter reported that her family was divided in their reaction to public perception of them, saying her sons were worried about how they would be perceived living there while she personally thought nothing of it as the public was not financing their residence and she favored the family being together.

On August 16, 1979, Carter released a statement announcing Edith J. Dobelle had accepted "the newly created position of staff director for the East Wing".

After leaving the White House, Carter reflected of Washington, "I love this city. I loved living here and being so close to the seat of power, being a part of the political system. When you watched television you knew the people involved, you were familiar with both sides of the issues."

Equal Rights Amendment
During the 1976 campaign, Carter spoke to feminists about her equal partnership with her husband. In January 1977, prior to the inauguration of her husband, Carter substituted for him in speaking with Senator Birch Bayh over the phone as the latter wanted President-elect Carter to lobby for support of the Equal Rights Amendment being ratified in Indiana. She persuaded Wayne Townsend to switch his vote and the Equal Rights Amendment was approved in an Indiana Senate vote of 26 to 24.

In reference to Carter's role in supporting the Equal Rights Amendment, associate professor of religion Elizabeth Flowers said, "[Rosalynn Carter] wanted to temper down some of the more radical elements of feminism, as she saw it, and challenge what she felt were caricatures of the movement. She wanted to be sure that the struggle for ERA really appealed to mainstream America."

Public image
During the 1976 election cycle, journalists dubbed Carter the "steel magnolia" for having a fragile and feminine appearance that concealed a "tough as nails" interior. Carter was known for a lack of attention paid to fashion, and her choice to reuse the gown from her husband's swearing in as Governor to his presidential inauguration reinforced this view of her. Carter's public interest in national policy prompted Kandy Stroud of The New York Times to speculate she might become the most activist First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt. Amid the sinking approval ratings of President Carter, Rosalynn maintained high favorable viewpoints in the eyes of the public, and was tied with Mother Teresa for most admired woman in the world. In April 1979, during her speech as guest speaker at the 1979 Matrix Awards Luncheon of New York Women in Communications Inc., Carter said the issues she was championing were being met with opposition due to their lack of sexiness in being topics a First Lady discusses.

1980 presidential campaign
President Carter was challenged by Ted Kennedy for his re-election bid in the Democratic presidential primary. Carter would later write that the ongoing Iran hostage crisis impacted the latter's choice to rely on Rosalynn among others in his administration to advocate for his policies on the campaign trail. Vice President Mondale would come to view himself and Rosalynn as President Carter's proxies through much of the spring portion of the election cycle. Rosalynn would reflect that the Iowa victory of the Carter re-election campaign, which saw President Carter defeat Kennedy 59.16% to 31.23%, made it easier for her to be unbothered by Kennedy's attacks. Although President Carter was able to secure the nomination, Rosalynn would come to believe that Kennedy had damaged the Democratic Party through his campaign and not adequately assisted in the general election: "He was a poor loser. I thought that once he saw that he could not win he would try to help the Democratic Party because I thought it was so important to keep Ronald Reagan out of the White House and I thought he should have helped. Instead, he tore the Democratic Party to pieces."

In the last few months of her husband's presidency, Rosalynn was confident that she and her husband would be able to defeat Reagan in the general election. On her birthday, she saw polls that showed they were gaining on Reagan, whose previous lead of 25 percent had decreased to 7. In the November 4 election, Carter lost to Reagan in a landslide. Rosalynn would later cite Christian conservatives, the Iran hostage crisis, inflation, and desire to wage a protest vote against the current administration with having contributed to Carter's defeat. Her husband's loss came shortly after the passing of the Mental Health System Act, which sought to do much of what she had wished for during her tenure. However, after Ronald Reagan was elected, she reflected "funding of our legislation was killed, by the philosophy of a new President. It was a bitter loss."

In the days following the election, Rosalynn experienced depression, which led her husband to express the benefits of his impending post-presidency. She telephoned supporters of the re-election campaign to thank them for their involvement. Rosalynn met with Reagan's wife, Nancy, during the transitional period and provided her with a tour of the White House. Rosalynn and Nancy developed a friendship as a result of their shared support for the Equal Rights Amendment. She was also satisfied that the Iran hostages were released on the day of Reagan's inauguration.

Personal life

Marriage and family
Their families were already acquainted when Rosalynn first dated Jimmy Carter in 1945 while he was attending the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis. She became attracted to him after seeing a picture of him in his Annapolis uniform. The two were riding in the back seat of the car of Ruth Carter Stapleton's boyfriend when Jimmy surprised Rosalynn by kissing her. This was the first time that Rosalynn had ever allowed a boy to do so on the first date. Rosalynn agreed to marry Jimmy in February 1946 when she went to Annapolis with his parents. The two scheduled their marriage to take place in July and kept the arrangement secret. Rosalynn resisted telling her mother she had chosen to marry instead of continuing her education. On July 7, 1946, they married in Plains. The marriage canceled Rosalynn's plans to attend Georgia State College for Women, where she had planned to study interior design.

The couple had four children: John William "Jack" (b. 1947), James Earl "Chip" III (b. 1950), Donnel Jeffrey "Jeff" (b. 1952), and Amy Lynn (b. 1967).  Due to Jimmy's military duties, the first three were born in different parts of the country and away from Georgia. During those duties, Rosalynn watched over and enjoyed the independence she had gained from raising the children on her own. However, their relationship faced its first major crisis when she opposed Jimmy's resigning to return to Plains in 1953 after he learned his father was dying. Jimmy reflected that she "avoided talking to me as much as possible" as a result of his decision and would interact with him through their children. They were fans of the New York Yankees until the Braves moved to Atlanta. They said they never went to bed arguing with each other.

In 1953, after her husband left the Navy, Rosalynn helped run the family peanut farm and warehouse business, handling accounting responsibilities. Around this time, yearning for another child, the Carters discovered Rosalynn had physical ailments preventing pregnancy. She underwent surgery to remove a large tumor from her uterus 12 years later. Her obstetrician confirmed she could have another child, and their daughter Amy was born thereafter.
Rosalynn had different relationships with each member of Jimmy's family. Becoming friends with his sister, who was two years younger than she, Rosalynn gave her dresses she had outgrown. However, she and Jimmy's mother, Lillian Gordy Carter, had difficulty living together.

In later years, the couple rode two and a half miles a day on three-wheel electric scooters, and they read the Bible aloud to each other in Spanish before they retired to bed each night.

Since 1962, the year her husband Jimmy was elected to the Georgia State Senate, she has been active in the political arena.  Carter backed Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1964 presidential election, which she stated put her and her family at odds with other Georgians and caused them to develop a closeness with each other over shared values that others opposed.

Jimmy thoroughly consulted with Rosalynn before he mounted a bid for Governor of Georgia in 1966. She traveled to multiple towns throughout the state with promotional materials, visited multiple establishments such as radio stations and newspaper offices, and attending civic organizations meetings. In one encounter, she tried endorsing her husband to a man in Washington, Georgia, the latter declaring his support for Republican candidate Bo Callaway before spitting on her. Rosalynn would later describe the encounter as the "worst political experience of my life." Summarizing the race, Carter wrote, "This was a brief and rushed campaign, but we all learned many things that were helpful to us later." The 1966 gubernatorial campaign began a new interaction between the Carters, with Rosalynn determining that she would know her husband's positions on issues and be informed.

The month after the election, Jimmy Carter began campaigning for the 1970 Georgia gubernatorial election. In this campaign, Rosalynn made speeches, which she had not done in prior campaigns. The Carters were separated for most of their travels, and she also began writing speeches for the first time in her political involvement. When she met a Carter campaign worker who confided in Rosalynn that her daughter had a mental illness, the sight of the exhausted woman haunted Carter and became a factor in her eventual focus on mental health. Jimmy would later disclose that the couple's Georgia years were when they became "keenly aware of the unmet needs of people in our state who suffered from mental and emotional disabilities."

Mary Prince (an African American woman wrongly convicted of murder, and later pardoned) was Amy's nanny for most of the period from 1971 until Jimmy Carter's presidency ended, partly thanks to Rosalynn's belief in Prince's innocence.

Health
In April 1977, Carter underwent surgery to remove a nonmalignant breast tumor.

In August 1977, Carter had a gynecological procedure at Bethesda Naval Hospital, her press secretary Mary Hoyt describing it as a routine private matter.

In May 2023, the Carter Center announced that Carter had been diagnosed with dementia. The statement also noted that she continues to live at home with her husband – who remains in hospice care as of the time of this announcement – "enjoying spring and visits with loved ones".

Activism

The Carter Center
After the Carters left the White House in 1981, Rosalynn and Jimmy continued to lead a very active life. In 1982, she co-founded The Carter Center, a private, not-for-profit institution based in Atlanta, Georgia. The Carters returned to the home they had built in 1961 in Plains, Georgia. She is a member of the Center's Board of Trustees and participates in many of the Center's programs, but gives special attention to the Mental Health Program. Carter and her husband fell into serious debt immediately after leaving the White House, but were able to alleviate this by writing projects and were able to open the Carter Center from their revenue. She, like Betty Ford before her, would say the American people made a mistake in not reelecting her husband and was bitter over the election. At this time she expressed resentment of Ronald Reagan, and even told interviewer Mike Wallace that he was ruining the country. Rumors at this time spread that she was running for Governor of Georgia, which she denied and outright stated she had no political ambition. When asked nearly two decades later why she had not run for Georgia Senate after Hillary Clinton was pondering to run, she responded "What would I have done in Washington, with Jimmy in Georgia?"

Rosalynn and her husband's first major project with the Carter Center was to help in peace between Israel and its neighbors. The two visited the Middle East in March 1983 and worked with Kenneth W. Stein and other associates of the Carter administration, and invited top leaders from a wide range of cities and countries to participate. This included the Palestinian community, Jordan, Syria and Egypt.

In the early summer of 1986, she and her husband aided the poor by helping to build homes on the North and West sides of Chicago. The two were accompanied by members of the Habitat for Humanity as they wielded hammers and saws while working for a week to construct homes in a vacant lot. The Carters removed themselves and the Carter Center in 1991, from direct involvement in the Middle East at the time that President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker became more active. However, they did monitor the Oslo peace agreement of 1993, which sprung from the President and Secretary of State's bringing Palestinians and other parties involved in the matter at a conference in Madrid.

Mental health advocacy

Rosalynn Carter created and serves as the chair of The Carter Center Mental Health Task Force, an advisory board of experts, consumers, and advocates promoting positive change in the mental health field. She hosts the annual Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy, bringing together nationwide leaders in the mental health field.

In April 1984, she became an Honorary Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and serves as a board member emeritus of the National Mental Health Association. In 1985, she started the Rosalynn Carter Symposium on Mental Health Policy. The launch and its proceeds allowed representatives of mental health organizations to come together and collaborate on prominent issues. Success of the Symposium led the creation of the Mental Health Program in 1991. Carter established the Mental Health Task Force that same year to guide the Symposia as well as other Mental Health programs. Rosalynn became chair of the International Women Leaders for Mental Health in 1992. Three years later, she was honored with the naming of the Rosalynn Carter Mental Georgia Health Forum.

The Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism provide stipends to journalists to report on topics related to mental health or mental illnesses. The one-year fellowship seeks to promote public awareness of mental health issues, as well as to erase the stigma associated with them. In September 2004, Carter met with the recipients of the eighth annual Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism at the Carter Center.

In 2007, Rosalynn Carter joined with David Wellstone, son of one-time U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone, in pushing Congress to pass legislation regarding mental health insurance. She and Wellstone worked to pass the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 which requires equal coverage of mental and physical illnesses when policies include both types of coverage. And both testified before a House subcommittee regarding the bill in July 2007.

Legislation requiring parity in health insurance coverage for treatment of mental illnesses was ultimately passed and signed into law in October 2008.

Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving
Rosalynn Carter is president of the board of directors for the Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving (RCI) at Georgia Southwestern State University, her alma mater in Americus, Georgia. The RCI, which was established in 1987, aims to address issues related to caregiving in America and internationally. The institute focuses its work on both family and professional caregivers for individuals living with chronic illness and disabilities, limitations related to aging, and other health concerns across the lifespan. It plays a major role in moving science into practice for caregivers by supporting the implementation of evidence-based programs and interventions for caregivers in community settings. The inaugural Rosalynn Carter Institute Gala Celebration of Caregivers took place in June 2004 in Symphony Hall and featured Carter presenting bronze medallions to award winners.

Advocacy for women and children

In 1977, Rosalynn Carter was a speaker at the 1977 National Women's Conference among other speakers including Betty Ford, Bella Abzug, Lady Bird Johnson, Barbara Jordan, Audrey Colom, Claire Randall, Gerridee Wheeler, Cecilia Burciaga, Gloria Steinem, Lenore Hershey and Jean O'Leary.

In 1988, Rosalynn Carter convened with three other former first ladies—Betty Ford, Lady Bird Johnson, and Pat Nixon—at the "Women and the Constitution" conference at The Carter Center to assess that document's impact on women. The conference featured over 150 speakers and 1,500 attendees from all 50 states and 10 foreign countries. The conference was meant to promote awareness on sexual inequality in other countries, and fight against it in America.

Rosalynn Carter served on the Policy Advisory Board of The Atlanta Project (TAP) of The Carter Center, addressing social ills associated with poverty and quality of life citywide.

In 1991, Rosalynn Carter launched Every Child By Two, a nationwide campaign that sought to increase early childhood immunizations along with Betty Bumpers, wife of former U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers of Arkansas. Rosalynn Carter serves as President of the organization and Bumpers as Vice President. The campaign's launch was in response to the deaths of nearly 150 people after a resurgence of measles.

Rosalynn Carter also serves on the board of advisors for Habitat for Humanity and as an honorary chair of Project Interconnections, both of which aim to provide housing for those in need. Additionally, she is a deacon at her and her husband's Plains Baptist church.

Other activities
Shortly after leaving office, Carter signed with Houghton Mifflin for the writing of her autobiography. Carter's memoir, First Lady from Plains, was released in 1984. Mark Updegrove wrote that her memoir, and that of her husband, Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President, succeeded in "boosting the bank account and spirits of their authors." Carter's work of the autobiography was noted by her husband during a March 1981 interview, who said that she would be "starting on a book shortly" without disclosing what the contents were.

Early into the Carters' time out of the White House, Rosalynn retained sour feelings toward the loss and questioned her faith as to how her husband could not be re-elected despite what she believed were good choices he had undertaken during his presidency.
In a 1984 interview, Carter was asked about her opinions on the 1984 Presidential election, saying she was unsure if it was the right time for a female vice presidential candidate on the Democratic ticket and that the most important thing for the Democrats should be winning against Reagan, who she charged with committing a tragedy with his policies. Carter also voiced her wishes for her husband to run for a second non-consecutive term. She knew in her heart that her husband would not seek a non-consecutive term and went into depression in the early weeks of the retirement, Jimmy's attempts at portraying an artificial happiness straining the relationship due to him seeming to not understand her reasons for being disappointed in their current state of affairs.

Throughout the 1980s, Carter developed a pattern of giving speeches to audiences on the subject of caring for caregivers, Carter reflecting that members of the audience "came up to me crying, saying that this was the first time someone understood what they were going through."

After the October 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, the Carters contacted his wife Jehan Sadat and traveled with former presidents Nixon and Ford to represent the United States at his funeral. The Carters visited Jehan, who Rosalynn pledged to stay with during the funeral. Later that month, the Carters attended the National Mental Health Association's gala dinner dance, their first visit to D.C. since leaving the White House. Rosalynn presented former Governor of New York W. Averell Harriman with an award during the event. In December, Carter released a statement on the death of her personal secretary Rita Regina Merthan.

In October 1982, Carter attended the funeral of Bess Truman in Independence, Missouri.

In March 1983, the Carters traveled through the Middle East. In late 1983, Carter visited her ailing mother-in-law Lillian Carter at Americus-Sumter County Hospital, and was by her bedside when she died, attending her funeral days later.

In October 1985, the Carters traveled to Nepal for a thirteen-day vacation in the Himalayan kingdom.

In July 1986, Rosalynn traveled with her husband to Chicago, Illinois for a weekend assisting with construction projects for Habitat for Humanity. In October, the Carters gave President Reagan and his wife Nancy a tour of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum.

On January 19, 1988 Rosalynn was given the honor of christening the cruise ship Sovereign of the Seas in a gala ceremony in Miami. It was the largest cruise ship in the world at the time. A special oversized  liter bottle of Taittinger's champagne was used.

In March 1988, Carter attended a hearing on mental health by the House Select Committee on Aging. She criticized that ten years after a presidential commission found that 10% of Americans needed some form of mental health care, "most who were underserved at that time are still underserved in 1988." Later that month, the Carters traveled to Nigeria for discussions with officials on disease control and rural development projects.

Carter attended the November 4, 1991 dedication of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

In September 1993, the Carters returned to the White House for a ceremony promoting the North American Free Trade Agreement the following day.

In August 1994, the Carters organized a Habitat for Humanity crew for the rebuilding of the house of family friend Annie Mae after it had been destroyed in a flood the previous month.

2000s
On December 4, 2001, Carter delivered a speech to the National Press Club.

In January 2003, Carter attended the benefit for the 20th anniversary celebration of the Betty Ford Center in Indian Wells, California.

During the June 5, 2004 christening of the USS Jimmy Carter in Groton, Connecticut, Carter served as the ship sponsor and christened the ship with a bottle of champagne. On October 11, 2004, Carter delivered the keynote address at the AAP National Conference & Exhibition, stating that she would favor medical school curricula requiring doctors to have the ability to recognize mental health symptoms and stressing the importance of recognizing symptoms in early childhood.

In December 2006, Carter was ordained a deacon at the Maranatha Baptist Church.

In January 2007, Rosalynn and her husband joined other First Ladies and Presidents in attending the funeral of Gerald Ford and six months later, attended Lady Bird Johnson's as well. In a 2007 interview shortly before her 80th birthday, Carter said she would continue a full schedule despite wanting to curtail her schedule with the advancing of age and it had become a regularity  for her to plan lowering her workload but failed to do so since she still did not "want to miss anything."

In March 2009, Rosalynn and her husband met with National Security Advisor James L. Jones for a "general briefing". Carter was present for the April 21, 2009 signing by President Barack Obama of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.

2010s

In 2010, she criticized television crime dramas that portrayed mentally ill people as violent, when in fact they were more prone to being victims of crime. On May 7, 2010, she attended the Michelle Obama-hosted Mother's Day Tea at the White House, and was joined by her granddaughter Sarah and infant great-granddaughter. In June, the Carters cut the ribbon at the grand opening of the Best Western Plus Windsor Hotel in Americus, Georgia. On October 26, Carter appeared at a discussion panel at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

After the death of Betty Ford on July 8, 2011, Carter delivered a eulogy during a memorial service. Carter called her one who had the courage to speak the truth and fight stigmas surrounding illness and addiction, even calling her "a tireless advocate for those struggling."

Carter attended a speech given by Georgia National Guard's Colonel Brent Bracewell in the morning hours of October 25, 2012. Carter gave out the Georgia Paraprofessional Caregiver of the Year, Volunteer Caregiver of the Year, Family Caregiver of the Year, and an award with her namesake, the Rosalynn Carter Leadership in Caregiving Award later that day and expressed happiness in the amount of progress that had been made "since we started."

On April 25, 2013, Carter attended the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum with her husband and other former First Ladies and Presidents. In October 2013, Carter spoke about her confidence in the American people and her lack of confidence in the government on the issue of the income gap in the United States. Carter had "one of the greatest disappointments" corrected when learning from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the Obama administration had passed a mental health insurance rule. She was "shaking" after learning about the government rules that required equal treatment for mental health upon hearing the announcement in November 2013. She and her husband were saddened by the death of Nelson Mandela.

In August 2015, Jimmy announced his cancer diagnosis, stating that it had spread throughout his body. At the time of the announcement, Betty Pope, cousin of the former president, attested to Rosalynn's strength and voiced her belief that the former First Lady would remain committed to her husband. Carter made her first public comments about the illness a month later in September, saying, "In spite of what's going on, it's been kind of wonderful just to know we have that kind of support, and also Jimmy's attitude is helping". In November 2015, she and her husband traveled to Memphis, Tennessee where they assisted in construction for the town's Habitat for Humanity affiliate.

In January 2016, Jimmy Carter confirmed that he was having regular treatments and said of Rosalynn at the time, "Her support has helped me through the last 69 years since we've been married in everything I've ever tried. Of course, when I was ill and thought I might die at any time, she was there for me." Carter attended the March 11, 2016 funeral of Nancy Reagan at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. In July 2016, Carter endorsed Proposition 62, which would abolish the death penalty in California, releasing a joint statement with her husband in support of the measure. She voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary of that year. Carter differed from her husband in believing Russia had interfered with determining the results of the general election. Upon the death of Barbara Bush on April 17, 2018, Carter became the oldest living former First Lady. On October 17, 2019, she became the longest-married former First Lady.

2020s

In July 2021, the Carters celebrated their 75th wedding anniversary, becoming the first presidential couple to do so.

Books
Rosalynn Carter has written five books:
 First Lady from Plains (autobiography), 1984,
 Everything to Gain: Making the Most of the Rest of Your Life (with Jimmy Carter), 1987,
 Helping Yourself Help Others: A Book for Caregivers (with Susan K. Golant), 1994,
 Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers (with Susan K. Golant), 1998,
 Within Our Reach:  Ending the Mental Health Crisis (with Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade), 2010,

Awards and honors

On October 5, 2002, Rosalynn Carter was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. She became only the third First Lady ever inducted into the Hall of Fame, joining Abigail Adams and Eleanor Roosevelt. (Hillary Clinton was inducted in 2005.)

In 1999, Rosalynn and Jimmy Carter received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor.

Among Rosalynn's many other awards for service are:

 Dorothea Dix Award, Mental Illness Foundation, 1988
 Georgia Woman of the Year Award, 1996
 Jefferson Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, 1996
 United Nations Children's Fund International Child Survival Award, 1999
 Rhoda and Bernard Sarnat International Prize in Mental Health, Institute of Medicine, 2000
 United States Surgeon General's Medallion, 2000
 American Peace Award along with Jimmy Carter, 2009

Rosalynn Carter has received honorary degrees from the following institutions:

 H.H.D., Tift College, 1979
 L.H.D., Morehouse College, 1980
 D.P.S., Wesleyan College, 1986
 LL.D., University of Notre Dame, 1987
 D.Litt., Emory University, 1991
 L.H.D., Georgia Southwestern State University, 2001
 LL.D., Regis College, 2002
 Queen's University, 2012

Rosalynn served as distinguished centennial lecturer at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia, from 1988 to 1992. She has been a Distinguished Fellow at the Emory University Department of Women's Studies in Atlanta since 1990.

References
Portions of this article are based on public domain text from:

Sources

External links

 The Carter Center
 National First Ladies Library
 New Georgia Encyclopedia
 Rosalynn Carter Institute for Caregiving

 Rosalynn Carter at C-SPAN's First Ladies: Influence & Image
 Rosalynn Carter on Encyclopedia Britannica

|-

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People from Plains, Georgia
Rosalynn
First ladies of the United States
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Georgia (U.S. state) Democrats
American autobiographers
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American women non-fiction writers
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Rosalynn Carter


Hornussen is sport played in Switzerland. Its name comes from the puck which is called a "Hornuss" (hornet) or "Nouss". When hit, the hornuss can whizz through the air at up to 300 km/h (186.4 mph) and creates a buzzing sound. It is a team sport, played between two teams of 16-20 players. Teams take turns to see how far they can hit the hornuss, while the other team attempts to stop it in the air with a type of bat, called a "schindel".

Together with Schwingen and Steinstossen, Hornussen is seen as a Swiss national sport. There are only a few teams in other countries.

References

Sport in Switzerland

Hornussen


Alī Beg (; ; died  1522) was a governor of Dulkadir Eyalet, appointed by the Ottoman sultan Selim I. After resisting threats to his authority, he fell under suspicion of treason by Selim and was removed as governor in 1522.

Governor of Dulkadir
Ali Bey, nephew of the Emirate of Dulkadir bey Alaüddevle Bozkurt, enters into the pages of history in 1515, after the former Emirate of Dulkadir was taken from the Mamluks by the Ottoman Empire. After the victory, Ali Bey was appointed governor of the now province by the Ottoman sultan Selim I, and Alaüddevle's head was delivered to the city of Cairo.

In early 1520, Şah Ismail of Persia gave tacit approval to an uprising in Anatolia by the Kızılbaş, a Shia militant group. Known as the Şah Veli uprising because of the involvement of a Kızılbaş leader in the Ottoman province of Sivas named Şah Veli, it soon became so problematic to Anatolia that the governor of Sivas wrote to Selim for help. The Kızılbaş had many members within its ranks that were associated with the former Dulkadirid rulers who opposed Ali Bey. After two successive defeats at the hands of the Ottoman Army, Şah Veli was brought to Ali Bey and dismembered for all to see. This execution was meant to warn anyone who threatened Ali Bey that support for the Shia Kızılbaş was not to be tolerated under any circumstances. In 1522, he was removed as governor by Selim I after being accused of treason.

References

Bibliography

16th-century deaths
1522 deaths
Dulkadirid monarchs

Ali of Dulkadir


Fort Amiel Museum is in Newcastle KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

Fort Amiel was constructed in 1876 by Major Charles Frederick Amiel and soldiers of the 80th Staffordshire Volunteers. It was built as a fort and "look-out post", for the British during the run up to the annexation of the former Transvaal and the Zulu War, although it really never served that purpose.

During the First Boer War it was used as a garrison for the King's Own Royal Regiment (Lancaster).

Fort Amiel served as a commissariat depot, transit camp and hospital. Many wounded soldiers were taken there, to recover from their wounds. The fort is positioned on a knoll overlooking the original wagon drift across the Ncandu River. It has views of the Drakensberg mountain range and the town of Newcastle.

Major Charles Frederick Amiel was born on 2 August 1822, in Hanover Square, London, England. He was christened on 2 August 1822 in St Peter, Chertsey, Surrey, England. Major Amiel died on 10 September 1885 at London, England. He was buried at St Peter, Westminster, London. Amiel never married.

The fort and surroundings, including a graveyard below the knoll fell into disuse for many years. In 1979 the site was declared a National Monument and restoration work began after the discovery of the original plans for the fort during this period in a London Museum. The restoration work was undertaken by the visionary Newcastle Town Council and in conjunction with the Natal Museum Services.

Today, Fort Amiel houses an historic/cultural museum, featuring military displays of the two Anglo-Boer Wars. There is a wonderful cookhouse re-construction, showing a typical British Army Base found in the 1880s.

An addition to the fort and museum is a Zulu umuzi (hut) with a detailed interior.

See also
 List of Castles and Fortifications in South Africa

Gallery

References

Museums in KwaZulu-Natal
Amiel
South African heritage sites
Military and war museums in South Africa

Fort Amiel Museum


Hindu deities are the gods and goddesses in Hinduism. The terms and epithets for deity within the diverse traditions of Hinduism vary, and include Deva, Devi, Ishvara, Ishvari, Bhagavān and Bhagavati. Due to these being gods and/or deities, they very much intertwine in Greek gods, goddesses, and mythology. Some Hindu Deities include:

Shiva, Shiva (Siva) is one of the most important gods in the Hindu pantheon and is considered a member of the holy trinity (trimurti) of Hinduism with Brahma and Vishnu. A complex character, he may represent goodness, benevolence and serve as the Protector.

Vishnu, Vishnu is the god of Preservation, the great maintainer who often appears in various incarnations (avatara) to provide salvation for humanity. Some of his best-known avatars, who are tremendously popular and beloved throughout Hindu India, are the gods Krishna and Rama.

Ganesha, Ganesha, also spelled Ganesh, also called Ganapati, elephant-headed Hindu god of beginnings, who is traditionally worshipped before any major enterprise and is the patron of intellectuals, bankers, scribes, and authors.

Krishna, listen); Sanskrit: कृष्ण, IAST: Kṛṣṇa) is a major deity in Hinduism. He is worshipped as the eighth avatar of Vishnu and also as the supreme God in his own right. He is the god of protection, compassion, tenderness, and love and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities.

Durga, Durga (Sanskrit: दुर्गा, IAST: Durgā) is a major deity in Hinduism. She is worshipped as a principal aspect of the mother goddess Devi and is one of the most popular and widely revered among Indian divinities. She is associated with protection, strength, motherhood, destruction and wars.

Lakshmi, Lakshmi is the consort of the god Vishnu. She is one of the most popular goddesses of Hindu mythology and is known as the goddess of wealth and purity.

Brahma, Brahma is the first god in the Hindu triumvirate, or trimurti. The triumvirate consists of three gods who are responsible for the creation, upkeep and destruction of the world.
-The other two gods are Vishnu and Shiva. Vishnu is the preserver of the universe, while Shiva's role is to destroy it in order to re-create.-

Hanuman, Hanuman (/ˈhʌnʊˌmɑːn/; Sanskrit: हनुमान्, IAST: Hanumān) is a Hindu god and divine vanara companion of the god Rama. Hanuman is one of the central characters of the epic Ramayana. He is an ardent devotee of Rama and one of the chiranjivis.

Rama, Rama is an incarnation of Vishnu, God of Protection. Vishnu is one of a trinity of the three most important Hindu gods – Brahma the creator, Vishnu the protector, and Shiva the destroyer. Vishnu has had nine incarnations on earth as different beings. One of these is as Rama.

Kali, Kali, (Sanskrit: "She Who Is Black" or "She Who Is Death") in Hinduism, goddess of time, doomsday, and death, or the black goddess (the feminine form of Sanskrit kala, "time-doomsday-death" or "black")

Saraswati, Saraswati (Sanskrit: सरस्वती, IAST: Sarasvatī) is the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music, art, speech, wisdom, and learning. She is a part of the tridevi of Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Parvati.

Indra, Indra, in Hindu mythology, the king of the gods. He is one of the main gods of the Rigveda and is the Indo-European cousin of the German Wotan, Norse Odin, Greek Zeus, and Roman Jupiter. In early religious texts, Indra plays a variety of roles.

Kartikeya, Kartikeya (Sanskrit: कार्त्तिकेय, IAST: Kārttikeya), also known as Skanda, Kumara, Murugan, Mahasena, Shanmukha and Subrahmanya, is the Hindu god of war. He is a son of Parvati and Shiva, brother of Ganesha, and a god whose life story has many versions in Hinduism.

Agni, Agni, (Sanskrit: "Fire") fire-god of Hinduism, second only to Indra in the Vedic mythology of ancient India. He is equally the fire of the sun, of lightning, and of both the domestic and the sacrificial hearth.

Parvati, Parvati (Sanskrit: पार्वती, IAST: Pārvatī), Uma (Sanskrit: उमा, IAST: Umā) or Gauri (Sanskrit: गौरी, IAST: Gaurī) is the Hindu goddess of fertility, love, beauty, harmony, marriage, children, and devotion; as well as of divine strength and power.

Varuna, Varuna, in the Vedic phase of Hindu mythology, the god-sovereign, the personification of divine authority. He is the ruler of the sky realm and the upholder of cosmic and moral law (rita), a duty shared with the group of gods known as the Adityas (see Aditi), of whom he was the chief.

Vayu, Vayu (Sanskrit pronunciation: [ʋaːjʊ], Sanskrit: वायु, IAST: Vāyu) is a primary Hindu deity, the lord of the winds as well as deity of breath and the spiritual father of Hanuman and Bhima.

Radha, Radha (Sanskrit: राधा, IAST: Rādhā), also called Radhika, is a Hindu goddess and a consort of the god Krishna. She is worshiped as the goddess of love, tenderness, compassion and devotion. She is considered as an avatar of Lakshmi and is also described as the chief of gopis (milkmaids).

Sita, Sita (Sanskrit: सीता; IAST: Sītā, Sanskrit pronunciation: [ˈsiːtaː]) is a Hindu goddess and the heroine of the epic Ramayana and its other versions. She is described as the daughter of Bhūmi (the earth) and the adopted daughter of King Janaka of Videha and his wife, Queen Sunayana.

Surya, Surya (also known as Aditya) is the Hindu god of the Sun. He is considered the creator of the universe and the source of all life. He is the supreme soul who brings light and warmth to the world.

Rudra, Rudra (/ˈrʊdrə/; Sanskrit: रुद्र) is a Rigvedic deity associated with wind or storm, Vayu and the hunt. One translation of the name is 'the roarer'. In the Rigveda, Rudra is praised as the 'mightiest of the mighty'. Rudra means "who eradicates problems from their roots".

Shakti, In Hinduism, every god has a Shakti, or energy force. It's one of the reasons she is worshipped by millions of people throughout India. Shakti is also known as Parvati, Durga, and Kali, She's an archetype who you might call upon for strength, fertility, and power.

Yama, Yama, in the mythology of India, the god of the dead. The Vedas describe him as the first man who died, blazing the path of mortality down which all humans have since followed. He is the guardian of the south (the region of death) and presides over the resting place of the dead, which is located under the earth.

Prajapati, Prajapati, (Sanskrit: "Lord of Creatures") the great creator deity of the Vedic period of ancient India. In the post-Vedic age he came to be identified with the Hindu god Brahma.

Lists of gods and goddesses

Hindu deities


A rolltop desk is a 19th-century reworking of the pedestal desk with, in addition, a series of stacked compartments, shelves, drawers and nooks in front of the user, much like the bureau à gradin or the Carlton House desk. In contrast to these, the compartments and the desktop surface of a rolltop desk can be covered by means of a tambour consisting of linked wooden slats that roll or slide through slots in the raised sides of the desk. In that, it is a descendant in function, and partly in form, of the cylinder desk of the 18th century. It is a relative of the tambour desk, whose slats retract horizontally rather than vertically.

Jean-François Oeben is sometimes credited with designing the original rolltop desk around 1760, however his Bureau du Roi (completed by Jean Henri Riesener after Oeben's death) was a cylinder desk. The US Patent Office issued a patent for the first American-made rolltop desk to Abner Cutler of Buffalo, NY in 1882.

Production
Unlike the cylinder desk, the rolltop desk could be mass-produced rather easily since the simple wooden slats could be turned out very fast in a uniform way.  In contrast, the wooden section of a cylinder had to be treated with great pains to keep its form perfectly over time, lest it warp or bend, and make it impossible to retract or extend.  The wooden slats of the rolltop's tambour were usually joined together by being all attached to a cloth or leather foundation, and were thus less influenced by the problems which plagued the cylinder desk.

Usage
The rolltop desk was the mainstay of the small or medium-sized office at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

Because it was produced in vast numbers and at varying levels of quality, the rolltop desk is popular in the antique market. It is usually expensive especially if the wood used is expensive. It is also popular amongst set decorators who want to recreate the ambience of an office of the late 19th or early 20th century.

Gallery

See also
List of desk forms and types
A. Cutler & Son

References

Baumert, Kenneth.  "Building a rolltop desk:  Interlocking slats form an all-wood tambour."  Fine Woodworking. Volume 79. December 1989. pp. 48–53.
Gloag, John. A Complete Dictionary of Furniture.  Woodstock, N.Y. : Overlook Press, 1991.

Desks
History of furniture

Rolltop desk


Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG) is headquartered in Burlington owning extensive environmental protection areas, historic sites and culturally relevant gardens in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. It is one of the major tourist attractions between Niagara Falls and Toronto, as well as a significant local and regional horticultural, education, conservation, and scientific resource. The mandate is derived by a Provincial Act of 1941 centred on human interaction with the natural world and protection of environmentally significant lands that form the western tip of Lake Ontario. Royal Botanical Gardens spans an area of about 10 km by 4 km, dominated by two coastal wetlands, and glacial-carved landscapes that extend from the lake up to the Niagara Escarpment plateau. The various gardens and natural areas are accessed through nine public entrance locations. It is one of several Prescribed Public Bodies listed under the Ontario Heritage Act.

In 2006, in support of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, Royal Botanical Gardens was selected as Canada's National Focal Point for the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) by Environment and Climate Change Canada.

The  of nature sanctuary owned by the Royal Botanical Gardens is largely a remnant of the Dundas Marsh Game Preserve created in 1927. The properties now carry many cultural and environmental designations. Multiple national historic site features are associated with area, with the site featuring prominently as a landing and connection point to other regions of the Great Lakes. It is considered an important plant biodiversity hotspot for Canada, with a very high proportion of the wild plants of Canada in one area; is an Important Bird Area according to Bird Studies Canada; and is part of the Niagara Escarpment World Biosphere Reserve. More than 1,100 species of plants grow within its boundaries including the Bashful Bulrush (Trichophorum planifolium) which is found nowhere else in Canada, and the largest remaining population of one of Canada's most endangered trees, the Red Mulberry (Morus rubra). Both of these plants are listed as Endangered in Canada under the Species at Risk Act. In 2008, the RBG was designated as an Important Amphibian and Reptile Area by CARCNET, the Canadian Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Network.  Several plants listed on various Endangered Species Protection programs are held for protection and education purposes in various garden areas.

Unusually Royal Botanical Gardens is both the owner of the land under Cootes Paradise and Grindstone Marsh as well as regulator of activities on the water, despite it being an inlet of Lake Ontario. Water area activity regulation was formerly under the Hamilton Harbour Commission (Now Hamilton Oshawa Port Authority) as part of the areas historical federal port regulation. In the late 1970s the Harbour Commission and Royal Botanical Gardens made an agreement transferring regulation of use of the water area to the Gardens in support of its environmental protection mandate. However, Royal Botanical Gardens has no regulatory control over the quality of water flowing into its wetlands.

History

Royal Botanical Gardens developed as a concept in the 1920s under the City of Hamilton Board of Park Management, led by Thomas McQuesten. Initially the proposed botanical garden was to be located along the south shore of Cootes Paradise Marsh surrounding the Hamilton campus of McMaster University. The proposed botanical garden would also protect extensive natural areas along the marsh.

Formal permission was obtained in 1930 from King George V to call the gardens the "Royal Botanical Gardens". At the same time as the proposal for the botanical gardens was under consideration, the City of Hamilton was undertaking an ambitious program of beautification on the nearby Burlington Heights. The North-Western Entrance to Hamilton project included an extensive set of gardens designed by the Toronto firm of Wilson, Bunnell and Borgstrom. Among these was the Rock Garden created by lining a 5.5 acre abandoned gravel pit with limestone from the Niagara Escarpment. In 1932 the Board of Park Management brought together the Burlington Heights gardens and the south shore of Cootes Paradise as Royal Botanical Gardens.

The original vision of RBG was a mixture of horticultural displays and protected natural forests and wetlands. The first Director of RBG, Dr. Norman Radforth, was appointed in 1947 and was a Professor of Botany at nearby McMaster University. In 1954 Leslie Laking, initially Assistant Director and Horticulturist, was appointed as Director and served until 1981. Under his guidance, the institution developed into the major entity it is today. In the 1960s growth in horticultural expertise enriched the gardens and its programs, including new staff such as taxonomist Dr. James Pringle and Curator Freek Vrugtman. Over the years additional protected lands were added to RBG, including most recently the Berry Tract South property in 2015.

With approximately 1,100 ha (2,700 acres) of property, Royal Botanical Gardens is one of the largest such institutions in North America. In 2006, the Auxiliary of RBG published Love, sweat and soil: a history of Royal Botanical Gardens from 1930 to 1981 authored by Dr. Laking.

Financial
Funding for the institution was initially provided largely by the City of Hamilton and then in the 1940s by the Province of Ontario. By the early 1980s, funding restrictions and the desire to become increasingly self-supported led to charging of an admission fee for the cultivated garden areas. Admission is free to members. The extensive system of nature trails, more than  in length, has remained accessible to the local community within walking distance or by taking public transit. Membership revenues are critical to facilitating access. As of 2006, approximately 40% of the RBG's annual budget comes from support from the Province of Ontario, the City of Hamilton and the Region of Halton. The remainder, 60%, is classed as 'self-generated revenue' and is raised annually from admissions, memberships, donations, summer camps, and fees-for-service.

An organized volunteer group of more than 500 members supports the efforts to fulfill the RBG mandate. Annually, volunteers help raises tens of thousands of dollars and donate tens of thousands of hours in such roles as tour guides, events support, staffing the Archives, and maintaining plant collections.

Attractions
Royal Botanical Gardens presents five garden areas to visitors: Hendrie Park, RBG Centre (which includes the Mediterranean Garden, RBG's only conservatory), The Arboretum, Laking Garden, and the David Braley and Nancy Gordon Rock Garden. Major natural areas include trails through the valley of the lower Grindstone Creek, Rock Chapel, north and south shores of Cootes Paradise, and Princess Point.

Long standing RBG trails on the Niagara Escarpment at Rock Chapel are part of the original founding of the Bruce Trail. In 2010, RBG partnered with Geotrail to bring its trail network to the internet through an interactive website.

The natural lands or nature sanctuaries of Royal Botanical Gardens include some of the most significant wildlife and native plant areas in Canada. The largest area, which includes the wetland called Cootes Paradise or Dundas Marsh, is a major spawning area for native fish species in Lake Ontario, one of the best bird-watching areas in Canada, and is the subject of one of Canada's largest ecological rehabilitation efforts aimed at a wetland, called 'Project Paradise.'

The Arboretum contains one of the world's most diverse lilac collections, the Katie Osborne Lilac Collection. The "Lilac Dell" contains 570 plants of 407 unique varieties and is one of RBG's biggest attractions in late May. Royal Botanical Gardens also holds the second-largest garden show in Canada called The Ontario Garden Show. It comes second only to Canada Blooms which is held in Toronto.

Innovative educational programs are operated from both RBG's main building in Burlington and the Nature Interpretive Centre, located in the Arboretum to the north of Cootes Paradise in Hamilton. More than 18,000 school children per year visit the organized school programs, and over 200 public education offerings include such diverse topics as botanical illustration, organic cooking and basic botany. Aldershot School offers an ECO Studies program in conjunction with the RBG.

Royal Botanical Gardens is a member of the American Public Gardens Association and Botanic Gardens Conservation International and is active in local, regional, national, and international efforts to conserve plant diversity and ensure its sustainable use.

Royal Botanical Gardens's properties span Bayview Junction, hosting several popular locations for railfanning.

Images

See also
List of attractions in Hamilton, Ontario
List of Canadian organizations with royal patronage
List of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Canada
Green Fleet Expo
Toronto Botanical Garden

References

External links

Botanical gardens in Canada
Gardens in Canada
Important Bird Areas of Ontario
Organizations based in Canada with royal patronage
Burlington, Ontario
Museums in Hamilton, Ontario
Parks in Hamilton, Ontario
Nature centres in Ontario
1941 establishments in Ontario

Royal Botanical Gardens (Ontario)


IRCnet is currently the third largest IRC network with around 25,000 users using it daily. An early 2005 record had approximately 123,110 users simultaneously connected to the network.

History

Initially, most IRC servers formed a single IRC network, to which new servers could join without restriction, but this was soon abused by people who set up servers to sabotage other users, channels, or servers. In August 1990, the server eris.berkeley.edu remained the only one to allow anyone to connect to the servers.

A group of IRC server operators, with the support of Jarkko Oikarinen, introduced a new "Q-line" into their server configurations, to "quarantine" themselves away from eris by disconnecting from any subset of the IRC network as soon as they saw eris there.

For a few days, the entire IRC network suffered frequent netsplits, but eventually the majority of servers added the Q-line and effectively created a new separate IRC net called EFnet (Eris-Free Network); the remaining servers who stayed connected to eris (and thus were no longer able to connect to EFnet servers) were called A-net (Anarchy Network). A-net soon vanished, leaving EFnet as the only IRC network.

Continuing problems with performance and abuse eventually led to the rise of another major IRC network, Undernet, which split off in October 1992.

Between May and July 1996 IRCnet was formed as a European fork of EFnet, when a number of operator disagreements resulted in a group of European admins declaring their independence. The reasons for the "Great Split" as it came to be called, included:
 a policy disagreement about how much power system operators should have. IRCnet formed with the basis that there should be a set of rules defining what SysOps could and could not do. This viewpoint was opposed by many of the US-based EFnet servers.
 a technical disagreement on whether the network should use timestamping (TS) or Nick Delay as a means to prevent nick collisions, according to Jarkko Oikarinen.
 Vegard Engen, one of the European operators, stated that the immediate cause for the "Great Split" was that a major US EFnet hub had been disconnecting irc.stealth.net without warning, and thereby breaking the link to the European servers.

Characteristics
Many IRCnet servers state that "IRC is a privilege, not a right". That defines the characteristics of network usage ‒ users are normally not permitted to run bots and should avoid abusive behaviour.

Servers are generally open to users from their geographic location and do not allow outside connections, however, there are few open exceptions allowing access to users not covered by any local server.

Strict rules are operated for shell providers regulating, limiting or banning their connections.

IRCnet operates few if any network services to service nicknames or channels. It does implement reop -channelmode that allows channel operators to set hostmasks for users to be automatically "reopped" by the server. This mode is called +R with capital R
and supersedes the RFC2811 +r (lower-case r) channel mode, available only on !-channels and settable (not resettable) only by their creators.

All network servers run on IRCnet's ircd with the current version 2.11 (the latest software versions are maintained at IRC.ORG).

IRCnet's channel operators are generally free to run their channels however they see fit without the intervention of IRC operators. IRCops are primarily there to handle network and server-related issues, and rarely get involved with channel-level issues.

To fight nickname collisions when splits occur on re-link IRCnet will use unique IDs. If there are two users with the same nickname on both sides of the network when servers are re-linking then both nicknames will be forcefully changed to unique ID instead to prevent collisions.

References

External links
 IRCnet.com (unofficial) (up to 2019)
 IRCnet.org (unofficial) (up to 2004)
 IRCnet.info (unofficial) (up to 2018)
 Complete IRCnet server list
 IRCnet server map

Internet Relay Chat networks
Internet properties established in 1996

IRCnet


Augusta FireBall United, more commonly known as simply Augusta FireBall, was the American soccer team from Augusta, Georgia, founded in 2005. The team was a member of the United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League (PDL), the fourth tier of the American Soccer Pyramid, until 2006, when the team left the league and the franchise was terminated.

The team played its home games at Patriots Park in Columbia County, Georgia. The team's colors were white, black and red.

Final Squad
vs Laredo Heat, 28 July 2006

Year-by-year

Competition history
Augusta Fireball joined the PDL in 2005 as an expansion franchise, and made an immediate splash in the Mid Atlantic division. The team won four of its first five games in competition, including a dominant 6–0 take down of West Virginia Chaos in which Jason McLaughlin and Mark Buchholz scored two goals each, in just their fifth competitive game. Stadium issues meant that Fireball had to play all their home games at the start of the season, and spend the second half of the year on the road; unfortunately, this curious schedule meant that Fireball suffered during the second half of the season, losing heavily on the road to Raleigh Elite, Central Florida Kraze and Carolina Dynamo, although they did come out on top in an astonishing nine-goal thriller against West Virginia Chaos. The team's final day 3–1 loss to the DFW Tornados meant that the Fireball finished their first season fourth behind Richmond Kickers Future, just out of the playoffs. Jason McLaughlin and Ryan Roushandel were the team's joint top scorers, with 7 goals each.

Fireball started 2006 superbly, with an 8-game unbeaten run that included impressive victories, including a 3–2 come-from-behind win over Ajax Orlando Prospects in which Frederico Moojen scored a hat trick, a 4–2 victory on the road over Nashville Metros, and a comprehensive 3–0 win over Atlanta Silverbacks U23's in which Moojen scored another brace. In fact, it was the goalscoring prowess of Moojen which kept Fireball winning all season long. He scored two more goals in Augusta's 3–0 win over Atlanta in the return fixture in early July, and eventually finished the season as the top scorer in the entire PDL, with 18 goals, and was named overall PDL MVP. Despite a 1–0 loss to Carolina Dynamo on the last day of the regular season – only their third of the year – Fireball finished second in the South Atlantic Division, and qualified for the playoffs; their opponents in the Conference semi-finals were Mid South Division champions Laredo Heat, who eventually ran out 3–2 winners, and went on to reach the championship game.

At the end of the season, and despite their considerable on-field success, Augusta's management team announced that they would not be competing in the PDL in 2007.

Coaches
  Massoud Roushandel 2005
  Alec Papadakis 2006

Stadia
 Patriots Park, Columbia County, Georgia 2005–06

Average attendance
 2006: 424
 2005: 600

External links
 Augusta Fireball United

Sports in Augusta, Georgia
Soccer clubs in Georgia (U.S. state)
Defunct Premier Development League teams
Association football clubs established in 2005
Association football clubs disestablished in 2006
2005 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
2006 disestablishments in Georgia (U.S. state)
Columbia County, Georgia

Augusta FireBall


Rick Florian (born April 10, 1962) is a musician, songwriter and producer, most known for being the lead singer of contemporary Christian music rock band White Heart from 1986 through to their disbandment in 1998. He lives in Franklin, Tennessee with his wife, Lisa, and two of their five children. Florian works as a real estate agent, though he has sung on several music projects over the years.

Early life
Florian was born in South Bend, Indiana, in 1962. He graduated from Taylor University in 1984.

Whiteheart
Florian was a lighting tech/roadie for the band back in the 80s. When Florian was caught off guard singing and dancing to White Heart's songs, he was asked to audition for the open position as the band's vocalist. He got the job and recorded eight studio albums with them.

Throughout his tenure with the band, he was praised on several occasions for his clean voice and excellent performing abilities.  He could always find a clever spot to show off his back handspring in each concert.  Despite not being a founding member, he became the core of White Heart along with Billy Smiley and Mark Gersmehl (who's also an Indiana native, like Florian himself). Florian issued a statement several years ago that the band was only at "a dormant stage".

When Florian released his first album with White Heart, a tradition of using unique spelling variations of his name for each album began. There is no precise account as to who started it, but it remained up until the last albums of the band. The various spellings used have been: Ric, Rikk, Riq, Ricke, Rhic, Rikcq, Ricque. Florian has also been known to go by the nickname, "Tubes".

References

American male singers
Living people
1962 births
People from Franklin, Tennessee
Musicians from South Bend, Indiana
White Heart members

Rick Florian


Philetus Swift (June 26, 1763 in Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut – July 24, 1828 in Phelps, Ontario County, New York) was an American politician.

Life
He was the son of Elisha Swift (born 1731) and Mary Ransom (born 1738).  One of Swift's older brothers was future Brigadier General John Swift.  On April 4, 1786, he married his first wife Electra Goodrich in Sharon, Connecticut. On May 22, 1793, he married his second wife Sally Deane (1774–1820?) in Phelps, New York, and their son was Deane Swift (1794–1818). On November 26, 1823, he married his third wife Fanny (or Fauna, Fawnia, Faunia) Cole (c. 1792–1880), and their daughter was Electra Jane Swift (1825–1904).

He was a member of the New York State Assembly from Genesee, Ontario and Allegany Counties in 1807 and 1808, and from Ontario County in 1823.

He fought in the War of 1812, and became a lieutenant colonel.

He was a member from the Western District of the New York State Senate from 1810 to 1815 and from 1816 to 1818. In February 1817, when John Tayler became Acting Governor of New York after the resignation of Daniel D. Tompkins, Swift was elected President pro tempore of the State Senate. He was Acting Lieutenant Governor of New York until July 1, 1817.

Swift was a presidential elector in 1820, voting for James Monroe and Daniel D. Tompkins.

Swift was originally buried at the Pioneer Cemetery at Phelps, N.Y. However, in the early 1900s, his granddaughter had his remains reinterred in the Webster Rural Cemetery in Webster, N.Y.

Sources
 Political Graveyard
 The New York Civil List compiled by Franklin Benjamin Hough (pages 121ff, 180f, 199f; Weed, Parsons and Co., 1858)
 Cole genealogy
 Burial records in Ontario County
 Swift/Cole genealogy, at RootsWeb
 The Regents of the University of the State of New York: 1784-1959 compiled by Albert Bickmore Corey (University of the State of New York, 1959; page 31)
 Revolutionary War Soldiers Buried in Monroe County, New York—lists Swift's burial in Webster Rural Cemetery

1763 births
1828 deaths
Lieutenant Governors of New York (state)
People from Phelps, New York
American military personnel of the War of 1812
People from Kent, Connecticut
1820 United States presidential electors

Philetus Swift


Order () is one of the eight major hierarchical taxonomic ranks in Linnaean taxonomy. It is classified between family and  class. In biological classification, the order is a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms and recognized by the nomenclature codes. An immediately higher rank, superorder, is sometimes added directly above order, with suborder directly beneath order. An order can also be defined as a group of related families.

What does and does not belong to each order is determined by a taxonomist, as is whether a particular order should be recognized at all. Often there is no exact agreement, with different taxonomists each taking a different position. There are no hard rules that a taxonomist needs to follow in describing or recognizing an order. Some taxa are accepted almost universally, while others are recognized only rarely.

The name of an order is usually written with a capital letter. For some groups of organisms, their orders may follow consistent naming schemes. Orders of plants, fungi, and algae use the suffix  (e.g. Dictyotales). Orders of birds and fishes use the Latin suffix  meaning 'having the form of' (e.g. Passeriformes), but orders of mammals and invertebrates are not so consistent (e.g. Artiodactyla, Actiniaria, Primates).

Hierarchy of ranks

Zoology
For some clades covered by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, several additional classifications are sometimes used, although not all of these are officially recognized.

In their 1997 classification of mammals, McKenna and Bell used two extra levels between superorder and order: grandorder and mirorder. Michael Novacek (1986) inserted them at the same position. Michael Benton (2005) inserted them between superorder and magnorder instead. This position was adopted by Systema Naturae 2000 and others.

Botany
In botany, the ranks of subclass and suborder are secondary ranks pre-defined as respectively above and below the rank of order. Any number of further ranks can be used as long as they are clearly defined.

The superorder rank is commonly used, with the ending  that was initiated by Armen Takhtajan's publications from 1966 onwards.

History
The order as a distinct rank of biological classification having its own distinctive name (and not just called a higher genus ()) was first introduced by the German botanist Augustus Quirinus Rivinus in his classification of plants that appeared in a series of treatises in the 1690s. Carl Linnaeus was the first to apply it consistently to the division of all three kingdoms of nature (then minerals, plants, and animals) in his Systema Naturae (1735, 1st. Ed.).

Botany

For plants, Linnaeus' orders in the Systema Naturae and the Species Plantarum were strictly artificial, introduced to subdivide the artificial classes into more comprehensible smaller groups. When the word  was first consistently used for natural units of plants, in 19th-century works such as the Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis of Augustin Pyramus de Candolle and the Genera Plantarum of Bentham & Hooker, it indicated taxa that are now given the rank of family (see ordo naturalis, 'natural order').

In French botanical publications, from Michel Adanson's  (1763) and until the end of the 19th century, the word  (plural: ) was used as a French equivalent for this Latin . This equivalence was explicitly stated in the 's  (1868), the precursor of the currently used International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants.

In the first international Rules of botanical nomenclature from the International Botanical Congress of 1905, the word family () was assigned to the rank indicated by the French , while order () was reserved for a higher rank, for what in the 19th century had often been named a  (plural ).

Some of the plant families still retain the names of Linnaean "natural orders" or even the names of pre-Linnaean natural groups recognized by Linnaeus as orders in his natural classification (e.g. Palmae or Labiatae). Such names are known as descriptive family names.

Zoology
In zoology, the Linnaean orders were used more consistently. That is, the orders in the zoology part of the Systema Naturae refer to natural groups. Some of his ordinal names are still in use, e.g. Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) and Diptera (flies, mosquitoes, midges, and gnats).

Virology
In virology, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses's virus classification includes fifteen taxa to be applied for viruses, viroids and satellite nucleic acids: realm, subrealm, kingdom, subkingdom, phylum, subphylum, class, subclass, order, suborder, family, subfamily, genus, subgenus, and species. There are currently fourteen viral orders, each ending in the suffix .

See also
 Biological classification
 Cladistics
 Phylogenetics
 Taxonomic rank
 Systematics
 Taxonomy
 Virus classification

References

Works cited

Botanical nomenclature
Plant taxonomy
rank08
Bacterial nomenclature

Order (biology)


Bryan Lathrop (August 6, 1844 – May 13, 1916) was an American businessman and art collector from Alexandria, Virginia, United States. He is known for his works in Chicago, Illinois, where his insurance and real estate dealings made him very wealthy. Lathrop had a lifelong interest in the arts, supporting several Chicago institutions and rallying for an extension to Lincoln Park. He was also the longtime president of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Graceland Cemetery. He was the brother-in-law of Marshall Field and Thomas Nelson Page.

Early life
Bryan Lathop was born on August 6, 1844, to Jedediah Hyde Lathrop and Mariana Lathrop in Alexandria, Virginia.

His family was prominent in the state; he descended from John Lothropp and was the grand-nephew of Governor James Barbour. He was grandson of Daniel Bryan

Lathrop attended the Dinwiddie School, intending to enroll at the University of Virginia. However, with the outbreak of the American Civil War, Lathrop moved with his pro-Union family to Chicago, Illinois, home of his uncle, Thomas Barbour Bryan. Lathrop's parents sent him to study in Europe under private tutelage during the war. Here, Lathrop gained an appreciation of art and culture. Lathrop returned to Chicago in 1865.

Career

Lathrop engaged in a variety of pursuits once back in Chicago, dealing in real estate and life insurance. He quickly rose to prominence and became an advocate for parks in Chicago. Lathrop led an effort to extend Lincoln Park along the shore of Lake Michigan. His uncle Thomas named him the president of Graceland Cemetery in 1878. Lathrop held this position until his death. He also co-founded the Chicago Real Estate Board and became president of the Elmhurst Spring Water Company. He was a trustee of the Newberry Library and Art Institute of Chicago from 1894 until his death. He was also a trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1894 until 1898, when he was named its vice president. Five years later, he was named its president and served in this role until his death. Under his presidency, the orchestra moved into its current home in Orchestra Hall.

Personal life

Lathrop's sister was Florence Lathrop, who first married Henry, brother of Marshall Field, and then, after being widowed, married Thomas Nelson Page. Lathrop married Lynde Aldis, the daughter of a Chicago judge, in 1875. His younger brother was Barbour Lathrop, world traveler and patron of plant explorer David Grandison Fairchild. In 1892, Lathrop commissioned Charles Follen McKim of McKim, Mead & White to design his house, Bellevue Place, in Chicago. Lathrop was also an avid collector of art and had one of the largest collections of James Abbott McNeill Whistler in the country. Lathrop was a member of the Caxton Club, Grolier Club, and Chicago Historical Society.

Lathrop died at his home in Chicago on May 13, 1916, and donated most of his property to his philanthropic endeavors, including $700,000 to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He was buried in Graceland Cemetery. Edgar Lee Masters wrote a commemorative poem about Lathop in Poetry magazine in honor of his support of music in Chicago. The orchestra established the Bryan Lathrop Memorial scholarship fund in his memory, thanks in part to a $50,000 donation from Florence. Lathrop donated his Whistler collection to the Art Institute.

References

1844 births
1916 deaths
Businesspeople from Alexandria, Virginia
Businesspeople from Chicago
19th-century American businesspeople
Barbour family

Bryan Lathrop


Downhill is a 1927 British silent drama film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Ivor Novello, Robin Irvine and Isabel Jeans, and based on the play Down Hill by Novello and Constance Collier. The film was produced by Gainsborough Pictures at their Islington studios. Downhill was Hitchcock's fourth film as director, but the fifth to be released. Its American alternative title was When Boys Leave Home.

Plot
At an expensive English boarding school for boys, Roddy Berwick is school captain and star rugby player. He and his best friend Tim Wakeley are approached by a shopgirl, Mabel, who invites them to her shop during off-hours to dance and make merry with her. Shortly after, Mabel tells the boys' headmaster that she is pregnant and that Roddy is the father. However, Tim is the father, and he cannot afford to be expelled because he needs to win a scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. Promising Tim that he will never reveal the truth, Roddy accepts expulsion.

Returning to his parents' home, Roddy finds that his father Sir Thomas Berwick believes him guilty of the false accusation. Roddy leaves home and finds work as a waiter at a dinner theatre, then marries lead actress Julia Fotheringale after inheriting £30,000 from his godmother. Julia secretly continues an affair with her leading man Archie and discards Roddy after exhausting his inheritance and swindling him out of his mansion. To pay off his debts Roddy goes to work for a madame in a Paris dance hall who rents out Roddy as a taxi dancer (implying he is also a gigolo). One morning at dawn, looking around the near-empty dance hall at the remaining demimonde stragglers who've been up all night, and having been propositioned by a homely wealthy older woman, Roddy quits, disgusted with himself for having fallen so low in society and romancing women for money.

Roddy ends up alone and desperate in a shabby room in Marseilles. Sailors take pity on him and ship him back home, possibly hoping for a reward. During the 5-day sea voyage, Roddy experiences delirium and elaborate nightmarish hallucinations, replaying the traumas of the past years, creating composite visions of the women who have used him for money, from Mabel the shopgirl, to Julia his ex-wife, to the madame, and the women who have availed themselves of his services. Disoriented, he stumbles his way through London with the chaos of the streets blending with and superimposing over visions of chaos in his mind. Eventually he finds his way home to his father, who joyfully welcomes him back and begs Roddy's forgiveness, having learned the truth about the shopgirl's false accusation. Roddy ends up back at school, starring in "old Boy" rugby matches, resuming his previous status and life.

Cast
 Ivor Novello as Roddy Berwick
 Ben Webster as Dr. Dawson
 Norman McKinnel as Sir Thomas Berwick
 Robin Irvine as Tim Wakeley
 Jerrold Robertshaw as Reverend Henry Wakeley
 Sybil Rhoda as Sybil Wakeley
 Annette Benson as Mabel
 Lilian Braithwaite as Lady Berwick
 Isabel Jeans as Julia Fotheringale
 Ian Hunter as Archie
 Hannah Jones as The Dressmaker
 Barbara Gott as Madame Michet
 Violet Farebrother as The Poet
 Alf Goddard as The Swede
 J. Nelson as Hibbert

Production
The film is based on the play Down Hill, which was written by its star Ivor Novello and Constance Collier under the combined alias David L'Estrange.

The stage performance had a short run in the West End and longer in the provinces. In the play, Novello thrilled his female fans by washing his bare legs in a scene following a rugby match. An appreciative James Agate, drama critic for the London Sunday Times, wrote: "The scent of good honest soap crosses the footlights." Alfred Hitchcock included a similar scene of Novello for the film, in which he is shown naked from the waist up.

Hitchcock used a variety of screen techniques with a minimum of title cards, preferring instead to allow the film's visual narrative tell the story. The scene after Roddy leaves home opens with the title card "The world of make-believe," but everything else in the scene is conveyed visually. A closeup of Roddy in a tuxedo pulls back to show that he is waiting on a table at a restaurant, where he pockets a woman's cigarette case. The camera then follows him to reveal that he is actually playing a waiter on stage in a theatre. Hitchcock also incorporated shots of a descending escalator at Maida Vale tube station as a visual metaphor for Roddy's downhill descent. Although in a later interview with Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock called that scene "a naive touch that I wouldn't do today," he also incorporated a later scene of Roddy descending in an elevator for a similar effect. Hitchcock played with shadow and light in much the same way as did directors of German expressionist films of the time, especially F.W. Murnau, for whom Hitchcock had worked as an assistant director. In the Parisian dance-hall scene, Roddy tells his life story to an apparently sympathetic older woman, but as the morning light comes through the windows, he is repelled by the tawdry, decadent scene and the woman's masculine-looking face. Hitchcock experimented with dream sequences by sometimes shooting them in superimpositions, but broke with the common use of blurred images to indicate a hallucinatory scene by "[embodying] the dream in the reality, in solid, unblurred images." While delirious on the ship, Roddy envisions his father approaching him in a manner reminiscent of Murnau's vampire in Nosferatu, and when he returns to London, Roddy envisions a policeman's face as his father's.

Preservation and home video status
A fully tinted restoration of Downhill was completed in 2012 as part of the BFI's £2 million Save the Hitchcock 9 project to restore all of Hitchcock's surviving silent films.

As with Hitchcock's other British films, all of which are copyrighted worldwide, Downhill has been heavily bootlegged on home video. However, various licensed, restored releases have appeared on DVD, Blu-ray and video on demand from Network Distributing in the UK, The Criterion Collection in the U.S., and many others.

At the end of 2022, Downhill entered the public domain in the United States but only in its non-restored, scoreless form. It will remain copyrighted in the rest of the world until the end of 2050.

References

External links

 Alfred Hitchcock Collectors' Guide: Downhill at Brenton Film

1927 films
Films directed by Alfred Hitchcock
British black-and-white films
1927 drama films
British silent feature films
Films set in London
Films set in England
Films set in France
Gainsborough Pictures films
British films based on plays
1920s British films
Silent British drama films
1920s English-language films

Downhill (1927 film)


In ecology, intraspecific competition is when two individuals of the same species compete for limited resources. Usually, the one winning the competition has a better fitness, and may better be able to reproduce. Examples for resources are food, water, space, light, or mates. This is different from interspecific competition vwhere members of different species compete. Intraspecific competition is important, because through evolution, species can become better adapted to where they live.

Biological competition

Intraspecific competition