Former Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and First Lady | New York, New York
Hillary Rodham Clinton is former United States Secretary of State, a U.S. senator from New York, and First Lady of the United States. She is frequently mentioned as a possible Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. She is the first former First Lady to serve in the United States cabinet.
A native of Illinois, she was the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College in 1969. Following her speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted seven minutes. She then earned her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1973. She met her future husband, Bill Clinton, while both were students at Yale. At Yale she served on the editorial board of the Yale Review of Law and Social Action. Following graduation, she served as a congressional legal counsel until moving to Arkansas in 1974. She and Bill Clinton were married the following year. They have a daughter, Chelsea, who was born in 1980.
She cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977. The following year she became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation and in 1979 the first female partner at the Rose Law Firm. In 1988 and 1991, the National Law Journal listed her as one of the hundred most influential lawyers in America. She also became one of only two female faculty members in the School of Law at the University of Arkansas. In her capacity as the First Lady of Arkansas, she led a task force that reformed Arkansas’ education system.
Following her husband’s election as President, she 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. After completion of her husband’s second term as President, the family moved to New York where she was elected as the first female U.S. Senator from that state. Running in the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, she won more delegates than any other female candidate in America’s history. She was edged out by U.S. Senator Barack Obama who went on to win the national presidential election. President Obama then appointed her Secretary of State, the 67th person to hold that position. In her new position, she visited more countries than any other Secretary of State. She constantly encouraged empowerment of women everywhere. As First Lady, she argued against practices that abused women around the world and in a speech she gave in the People’s Republic of China, she noted “that it is no longer acceptable to discuss woman’s rights as separate from human rights.” She was confirmed as Secretary of State by a 94-2 vote in the U.S. Senate. Her last day as Secretary of State was February 1, 2013.
She is the author of several books including “It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us,” “Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids’ Letters to the First Pet,” “An Invitation to the White House: At Home with History,” and her biography, “Living History.”
Hillary Rodham Clinton was born in Chicago, Illinois, on October 26, 1947.