Hillary Rodham Clinton – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hillary Rodham Clinton 67th United States Secretary of State In office January 21, 2009 February 1, 2013 President Barack Obama Deputy James Steinberg William Burns Preceded by Condoleezza Rice Succeeded by John Kerry United States Senator from New York In office January 3, 2001 January 21, 2009 Preceded by Daniel Patrick Moynihan Succeeded by Kirsten Gillibrand First Lady of the United States In office January 20, 1993 January 20, 2001 President Bill Clinton Preceded by Barbara Bush Succeeded by Laura Bush First Lady of Arkansas In office January 11, 1983 December 12, 1992 Governor Bill Clinton Preceded by Gay Daniels White Succeeded by Betty Tucker In office January 9, 1979 January 19, 1981 Governor Bill Clinton Preceded by Barbara Pryor Succeeded by Gay Daniels White Personal details Born Hillary Diane Rodham[nb 1] (1947-10-26) October 26, 1947 (age66) Chicago, Illinois, U.S. Political party Democratic (1968present) Other political affiliations Republican (Before 1968) Spouse(s) Bill Clinton (m.1975) Children Chelsea (b. 1980) Alma mater Wellesley College Yale University Religion Methodism Signature Website Official website
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (/ /; born October 26, 1947) is a former United States Secretary of State, U.S. Senator, and First Lady of the United States. From 2009 to 2013, she was the 67th Secretary of State, serving under President Barack Obama. She previously represented New York in the U.S. Senate (2001 to 2009). Before that, as the wife of President Bill Clinton, she was First Lady from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College in 1969. She then earned a J.D. from Yale Law School in 1973. After a brief stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977. In 1978, she became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation, and in 1979 the first female partner at Rose Law Firm. The National Law Journal twice listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. As First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, she led a task force that reformed Arkansas's education system. During that time, she was on the board of Wal-Mart and several other corporations.
In 1994, as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a leading role in advocating the creation of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Her years as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. The only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, she testified before a federal grand jury in 1996 regarding the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during the Clinton presidency. Her marriage also endured the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.
After moving to the state, Clinton was elected the first female Senator from New York; she is the only First Lady ever to have run for public office. Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, she supported military action in Afghanistan and the Iraq War Resolution, but subsequently objected to the George W. Bush administration's conduct of the war in Iraq and continued to oppose most of its domestic policies. Clinton was reelected to the Senate in 2006. Running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Hillary Clinton won far more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost the nomination to U.S. Senator Barack Obama, who went on to win the national election.
Obama nominated Clinton to be Secretary of State, and she was confirmed by the Senate in January 2009. She was at the forefront of the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, including advocating for the U.S. military intervention in Libya. As Secretary of State, she took responsibility for security lapses related to the 2012 Benghazi attack, which resulted in the deaths of American consulate personnel, but defended her personal actions in regard to the matter. Clinton visited more countries than any other Secretary of State. She viewed "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values, by combining military power with diplomacy and American capabilities in economics, technology, and other areas. She encouraged empowerment of women everywhere, and used social media to communicate the U.S. message abroad.
Hillary Diane Rodham[nb 2] was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.[1][2] She was raised in a United Methodist family, first in Chicago and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.[3] Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham (19111993), was of Welsh and English descent;[4] he managed a successful small business in the textile industry.[5] Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell (19192011), was a homemaker of English, Scottish, French Canadian, French, and Welsh descent.[4][6] Hillary grew up with two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.
As a child, Hillary Rodham was a teacher's favorite at her public schools in Park Ridge.[7][8] She participated in swimming, baseball, and other sports.[7][8] She also earned numerous awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.[8] She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in student council, the school newspaper, and was selected for National Honor Society.[1][9] For her senior year, she was redistricted to Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and graduated in the top five percent of her class of 1965.[9][10] Her mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career,[6] and her father, otherwise a traditionalist, was of the opinion that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender.[11]
Raised in a politically conservative household,[6] at age thirteen Rodham helped canvass South Side Chicago following the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon.[12] She then volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.[13] Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anticommunist), who introduced her to Goldwater's classic The Conscience of a Conservative,[14] and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in Chicago in 1962.[15]
In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science.[16] During her freshman year, she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans;[17][18] with this Rockefeller Republican-oriented group,[19] she supported the elections of John Lindsay and Edward Brooke.[20] She later stepped down from this position, as her views changed regarding the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.[17] In a letter to her youth minister at this time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."[21] In contrast to the 1960s current that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.[22] In her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy.[23] Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty.[23] In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association and served through early 1969;[22][24] she was instrumental in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges.[22] A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first woman President of the United States.[22] To help her better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program.[23] Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican Representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination.[23] Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami. However, she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and left the Republican Party for good.[23]
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