Tess Peterson
Lamp Staff
Hillary Clinton was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 26, 1947, and grew up in the suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois. Clinton’s early life was quite normal. She grew up in a
modest household where her father Hugh Rodham was a successful small businessman, running a drapery factory. She learned the value of hard work by helping in the drapery factory.
Clinton enjoyed a normal childhood. She was a Girl Scout, and participated in sports such as swimming and baseball. She was inspired by the Space Race, as a young woman, and even wrote a letter to NASA asking to become an astronaut.
In high school, Clinton was a National Honor Society member, and a National Merit finalist. She won an election to be class vice president during her junior year. Her first defeat in politics came in her senior year as she ran for class president, in a three way race against two boys, one of which campaigned saying “you are really stupid if you think a girl can be elected president.”
Clinton lost and went on to graduate in the top 5 percent of her class, and starting an undergraduate career at Wellesley College, majoring in Political Science.
As a Wellesley student, Clinton served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans. This was a normal extension of her conservative upbringing and her Methodist faith. She was an intern in the U.S. House of Representatives, in the Republican Conference. Clinton became the first student to ever speak at the Wellesley commencement Ceremony.
After spending a summer traveling across Alaska and working as both a dishwasher in Mount McKinley National park, and sliming salmon at a fish processing cannery, Clinton began law school at Yale.
It was while studying law at Yale, that she met Bill Clinton. She did post graduate work at the Yale Child Study Center, working on children’s rights. This work was the basis of her first scholarly publication, “Children Under the Law”, which was published in the Harvard Educational Review in 1973.
Clinton went on to serve on the staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary as legal counsel during the Watergate scandal.
She married Bill Clinton after many of his proposals, and moved to begin a new life in Arkansas, in 1975. She joined the faculty of the School of Law at the University of Arkansas, as one of only two female faculty members.
She later joined the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock. When Bill was elected Governor, Clinton became the First Lady of Arkansas. She continued her work on behalf of children
with the Children’s Defense Fund.
In 1993, Clinton became the First Lady of the United States, when Bill Clinton was elected President. As First Lady, Clinton advocated for health care reform, but was rebuffed by Congress. She persisted, and with bipartisan cooperation was able to get the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) passed in Congress, in 1997.
This children’s health program serves eight million children to this day.
In 2000, Clinton was elected to the first of two terms as U.S. Senator from New York. She worked tirelessly to gain assistance for the families and first responders after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, in Manhattan.
Clinton ran, unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for President in 2008, losing to Barack Obama, in a close Primary race. Barack Obama went on to win the Presidency, and
selected Clinton to be Secretary of State. In this role, Secretary Clinton traveled the world to 112 countries to represent the United States and advocate for women’s rights.
Hillary Clinton is currently the Democratic Nominee for President.
