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| Quick Facts |
Birth:
1947 |
Death:
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Year Inducted:
2005 |
Achievement In:
Government |
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Hillary Rodham Clinton, the first First Lady to be elected to the United States Senate and the first woman U.S. Senator from New York State, was raised in Park Ridge, Illinois. An outstanding student, she was class president, student council member, member of the debating team, member of the National Honor Society, and received her high school’s first social science award. She became active in politics as a young Republican. She received her bachelor’s degree with honors in Political Science, was named class valedictorian and was the first student in Wellesley history to deliver a commencement address. Affected by the death of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., whom she had met in 1962, and by her experience attending the ‘Wellesley in Washington’ program, she joined the Democratic Party.
She studied at Yale Law School, interned at the Children’s Defense Fund, at the Yale Child Study Center, and served on the Board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. She received her law degree in 1973, and became staff attorney at the Children’s Defense Fund. Hillary Diane Rodham had met Bill Clinton at Yale in 1974. They married in 1975. Hillary Rodham Clinton joined the Rose Law Firm in 1976, specializing in intellectual property issues, and did pro bono work in child advocacy cases. Chelsea Clinton
was born in 1980.
While Hillary Rodham Clinton was First Lady of Arkansas, she continued to practice law. The National Law Journal twice named her one of the 100 most influential attorneys in America. As Arkansas’ First Lady, she chaired the Arkansas Educational Standards Commission, the Rural Health Advisory Committee, and was named Arkansas Woman of the Year in 1983, and Arkansas Mother of the Year in 1984. She co-founded Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, served on the boards of the Arkansas Children’s Legal Services, the Children’s Defense Fund, TCBY, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
She was First Lady of the United States from 1993 to January 2001 and chaired the Task Force on National Health Care Reform that recommended the “Clinton health care plan,” which was defeated in 1994. The controversy over her public role in leading health care policy reform was intense, but she continued as a staunch advocate of health care reform, women’s and children’s issues, arts, culture, and heritage promotion, throughout the Clinton Presidency. In November 2000, the people of New York State elected Hillary Rodham Clinton United States Senator. Along with Eleanor Roosevelt, Senator Clinton is credited with substantively redefining the role of First Lady and opening new pathways for women in political leadership. She is the author of Living History and It Takes a Village.
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