📅This fact may be outdated
Jimmy Carter passed away on December 29, 2024. The fact was accurate during his lifetime but now requires past tense since he is deceased. The historical claim remains true - he was indeed the first U.S. president born in a hospital.
Jimmy Carter is the first U.S. President to have been born in a hospital.
Jimmy Carter: First President Born in a Hospital
On October 1, 1924, at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia, James Earl Carter Jr. entered the world—and unknowingly made presidential history. Jimmy Carter, who passed away on December 29, 2024, at age 100, was the first U.S. president born in a hospital.
This distinction might seem trivial today, but it marks a profound shift in American life. For most of the nation's history, home births were the norm. Presidents from George Washington to Herbert Hoover all took their first breaths in bedrooms, parlors, and farmhouses across America.
When Hospital Births Became the Norm
The early 20th century saw a dramatic transformation in childbirth practices. In 1900, fewer than 5% of American births occurred in hospitals. By 1940, that number had surged past 50%. Carter's 1924 hospital birth placed him right in the middle of this revolutionary change.
His mother, Lillian Carter, worked as a nurse at the Wise Sanitarium, which undoubtedly influenced the family's choice. The facility wasn't a large urban hospital but rather a small rural sanitarium—typical of healthcare options in small-town Georgia at the time.
The Presidents Who Followed
After Carter, hospital births became standard for American presidents. Only five other presidents were born in hospitals:
- Bill Clinton (1946, Hope, Arkansas)
- George W. Bush (1946, New Haven, Connecticut)
- Barack Obama (1961, Honolulu, Hawaii)
- Donald Trump (1946, Queens, New York)
- Joe Biden (1942, Scranton, Pennsylvania)
The gap between Carter and the next hospital-born president (Biden, born 18 years later) reflects the gradual spread of hospital births across different regions and economic classes.
A Life of Historic Firsts
Being the first president born in a hospital was just one of Carter's many distinctions. He became the longest-lived president in U.S. history, reaching age 100 in October 2024—three months before his death. His post-presidency, spanning more than four decades, redefined what former presidents could accomplish through humanitarian work and diplomacy.
The symbolism runs deeper than medical history. Carter's hospital birth in a small Georgia town captured the essence of 20th-century American progress—the democratization of healthcare, the professionalization of medicine, and the slow but steady improvement of public health infrastructure, even in rural communities.
From that sanitarium in Plains to the White House and beyond, Carter's life spanned an entire century of American transformation. His first distinction—being born in a hospital—seemed minor at the time but perfectly foreshadowed a lifetime of being present for historical change.