Hillary Rodham Clinton - Biography

Last Editor: sis.endia				Hillary Rodham Clinton Biography -   Name : Hillary Rodham Clinton Profession : Politician Birth Details : born Hillary Diane Rodham on October 26, 1947

Hillary Rodham Clinton Trivia -

N/A

Hillary Rodham Clinton Detailed Biography -

Born: October 26, 1947 Chicago, Illinois Died: Spouse: President Bill Clinton Hillary Rodham Clinton (born Hillary Diane Rodham on October 26, 1947) is the junior United States Senator from New York, serving her freshman term since January 3, 2001. She is married to President Bill Clinton, and was First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Before that she was a prominent lawyer and First Lady of Arkansas. She is a member of the Democratic Party. Rodham family portrait Hillary Rodham was born in Chicago, Illinois, and was raised in a Methodist family in Park Ridge, Illinois. Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, a conservative, worked in the textile industry, and her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham, was a homemaker. As a child, Hillary was interested in sports, her church, and her school, a public school in Park Ridge. Prior to graduating from Maine South High School, she attended Maine East High School, where she served as class president, a member of the student council, a member of the debating team, and as a member of the National Honor Society. During her final year of high school (Maine South High School), she received the school's first social science award. Throughout her youth, Rodham was fond of sports, including tennis, skating, ballet, swimming, volleyball, and softball. She earned many awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout . Hillary entered the world of politics in 1964, at the age of 16, by supporting the presidential bid of Arizona Republican Senator Barry Goldwater. Her parents encouraged her to pursue the career of her choice . After completing high school in 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College in Massachusetts where she became active in politics, serving, for a time, as President of the Wellesley College Chapter of the College Republicans. During her junior year at Wellesley in 1968, Rodham was affected by the death of the civil rights leader, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom she had met in person in 1962 . After attending the Wellesley in Washington program at the urging of Professor Alan Schechter, her political views became more liberal and she joined the Democratic Party. Having been named valedictorian of her graduating class at Wellesley, Rodham graduated, in 1969, with departmental honors in Political Science. She became the first student in the history of Wellesley College to deliver a commencement address when she spoke at her own graduation . Her speech received a standing ovation and she was featured in an article published by Life magazine . In 1969, Rodham entered Yale Law School where she served on the Board of Editors of Yale Review of Law and Social Action and worked with underprivileged children at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. During the summer of 1970, she was awarded a grant to work at the Children's Defense Fund in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the summer of 1971, she traveled to Washington, D.C. to work on Senator Walter Mondale's subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education. For the summer of 1972, Rodham worked in the western states for the Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern's campaign. During her second year in law school, she volunteered at the Yale Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development. She also took on cases of child abuse at New Haven Hospital and worked at the city Legal Services, providing free legal service to the poor. She received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) degree from Yale in 1973, having written her widely recognized thesis on the rights of children , and began a year of post-graduate study on children and medicine at the Yale Child Study Center. During her post-graduate study, Rodham also served as staff attorney for the Children’s Defense Fund. She joined the presidential impeachment inquiry staff advising the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives during the Watergate Scandal. After President Nixon resigned in August of 1974, Rodham became a faculty member (one of only two women in the faculty) at the University of Arkansas Law School, located in Fayetteville, where her Yale Law School classmate and boyfriend Bill Clinton was teaching as well. In 1975 Rodham and Clinton were married and moved to Little Rock, Arkansas. In 1976, Hillary Rodham joined the venerable and influential Rose Law Firm, specializing in intellectual property cases while doing child advocacy cases pro bono. In 1979, she became the first woman to be made a full partner of Rose Law Firm . President Jimmy Carter appointed Rodham to the board of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. In 1978, with the election of her husband as governor of Arkansas, Rodham became Arkansas's First Lady, her title for a total of 12 years. On February 27, 1980, Rodham gave birth to Chelsea, their only child. In 1980, Bill Clinton was defeated in his re-election bid for governor and the couple left the statehouse. In February 1982, Bill Clinton announced his bid to regain the office, which would be successful; at the same time, Rodham began using the name Hillary Rodham Clinton. As first lady, Clinton chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Committee, where she successfully fought (against some opposition) for improved testing standards of new teachers . She also chaired the Rural Health Advisory Committee and introduced a pioneering program called Arkansas' Home Instruction Program for Preschool Youth, which trains parents to work with their children in preschool preparedness and literacy. Clinton was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983 and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984 . Throughout her time as first lady, Clinton continued to practice law with the Rose Law Firm. In 1988 and 1991 National Law Journal named Clinton one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America . Clinton co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families and served on the boards of the Arkansas Children's Hospital Legal Services and the Children's Defense Fund . From 1985 to 1992, Clinton served on the Board of Directors for both TCBY ("The Country's Best Yogurt") and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The Clinton family arrives at the White House in 1993.