Hillary Rodham Clinton Biography
Hillary Rodham Clinton went from a middle-class upbringing in Illinois to become one of this country's most prominent feminist icons and foremost advocates for children and families. She has been twice voted one of the most influential attorneys in the United States, is a bestselling author, and as First Lady she championed women's rights and human rights around the world.
Since her election to the U.S. Senate, Clinton has been a steadfast advocate for middle-class families: working to help create jobs, expand children's health care and protect Social Security from privatization. As the first New Yorker ever named to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Clinton has been a tough critic of the administration's bungling of Iraq and a fierce advocate for proper equipment, health benefits and treatment for military families.
Growing Up
The promise of this nation was very real as Clinton was growing up. Clinton's father, Hugh Rodham, was the son of a factory worker from Scranton, Penn. He trained sailors in the Navy during World War II and then returned to Illinois to start a small business selling draperies. He taught Clinton both a deep sense of patriotism and a strong belief in fiscal responsibility.
Clinton's mother, Dorothy, had a tough childhood. When Dorothy was just eight, her parents sent her and her sister to Los Angeles to be raised by their strict grandmother. It was not until Dorothy worked in another household as a teenager that she finally knew what a loving family could be. The stories of her mother's difficult childhood imbued in Clinton a fierce sense of justice and belief that no child should be mistreated and every child deserves to be loved.
The life that Hugh and Dorothy created for Clinton and her two brothers was a classic 1950s middle-class suburban childhood. Faith was central to her family — her mother taught Sunday school, and Clinton was a regular in her church youth group. She was deeply influenced by her youth minister who taught her about "faith in action." There were trips to the inner city, babysitting for the children of migrant farm workers, and an extraordinary night when Clinton was 14 and her youth group went to hear a speech by Martin Luther King Jr.
Early Career
Clinton went to Wellesley College, where she was chosen by her classmates to be the first-ever student commencement speaker. Next she attended Yale Law School, where Clinton focused on the law's impact on children and began her work as an advocate for children and families. As a law student, Clinton represented foster children and parents in family court and contributed to early studies that created legal standards for identifying and protecting abused children. Following graduation, she became a staff attorney for the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C..
After serving as only one of two women lawyers on the staff of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, Clinton chose not to pursue offers from major law firms; instead she accompanied her husband, Bill Clinton, to Arkansas.
But married life did not mean an end to her work. After arriving in Arkansas, Clinton ran a legal aid clinic for the poor and handled foster care and child abuse cases. She also organized a group called Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families. When Clinton was just 30, President Carter appointed her to the board of the United States Legal Services Corporation, a federal nonprofit program that funds legal assistance for the poor.
When Bill was elected Governor of Arkansas, Clinton continued to advocate for children, leading a task force to improve education in Arkansas through higher standards for schools as well as serving on the board of the Arkansas Children's Hospital. She also served on national boards for the Children's Defense Fund, the Child Care Action Campaign, and the Children's Television Workshop.
Clinton continued her legal career as well, partnering in a law firm. During this time, she led the American Bar Association's Commission on Women in the Profession, which played a pioneering role in raising awareness of issues like sexual harassment and equal pay. As a result of her efforts, Clinton was twice named one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America.
First Lady
The election of her husband to president in 1992 brought Clinton's work for women into the global spotlight. She traveled the world speaking out against the degradation and abuse of women and standing up for women's rights as human rights.
In the White House, Clinton led efforts to make adoption easier, to expand early learning and child care, to increase funding for breast cancer research, and to help veterans suffering from Gulf War syndrome. She helped launch a national campaign to prevent teen pregnancy and helped create the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, which moved children from foster care to adoption more quickly. Thanks in part to her efforts, the number of children who have moved out of foster care into adoption has increased dramatically.
Universal health care was one of Clinton's primary goals as first lady. Unfortunately, her fight did not succeed, but her commitment to health care for all has never wavered. She was instrumental in designing and championing the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which has provided millions of children with health insurance. She battled the big drug companies to force them to test their drugs for children and to make sure all kids get the immunizations they need through the Vaccines for Children Program. Immunization rates dramatically improved after the program launched.
Her two books, It Takes A Village and the autobiographical Living History, have become international best sellers.
In the Senate
In 2000, Clinton was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York. Clinton has been a powerful advocate for women in the Senate. She has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to Roe v. Wade, and is one of the original cosponsors of the Prevention First Act, which increases access to family planning. She also fought the Bush administration, ensuring that Plan B, an emergency contraceptive, would be made available over-the-counter to millions of U.S. women, providing women more freedom to make choices for their own bodies.
In the Senate, Clinton has not wavered in her work to expand quality affordable health care to more people. She worked to strengthen the Children's Health Insurance Program, which increased coverage for children in low-income families. She authored legislation that has been enacted to improve the quality and lower the cost of prescription drugs. She sponsored legislation to increase the U.S. commitment to fighting the global HIV/AIDS crisis, and is now leading the fight for expanded use of information technology in the health care system to decrease administrative costs, lower premiums and reduce medical errors.
Her strong advocacy for children continues in the Senate. She has passed legislation that will bring more qualified teachers into classrooms and more outstanding principals to lead our schools, and she has proposed expanding access to child care.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Clinton worked with her colleagues to secure the funds New York needed to recover and rebuild. She fought to provide compensation to the families of the victims, grants for hard-hit small businesses, and health care for front line workers at Ground Zero.
Clinton is the first New Yorker to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee, working to see that the U.S. military has the necessary resources to protect our national security. She has visited troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and at bases in New York. Clinton passed legislation to track the health status of our troops so that conditions like Gulf War Syndrome will no longer be misdiagnosed. She is an original sponsor of legislation that expanded health benefits to members of the National Guard and Reserves and has been a strong critic of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq.
But Clinton has recognized that we can't ignore our problems at home while we face challenges overseas. She has introduced legislation to tie an increase in the minimum wage to congressional salary increases. Clinton helped pass legislation that encouraged investment to create jobs in struggling communities through the Renewal Communities program. She has championed legislation to bring broadband Internet access, which is so important in today's information economy, to rural America.
Clinton is strongly committed to making sure that every American has the right to vote in fair, accessible and credible elections. She introduced the Count Every Vote Act of 2005 to ensure better protection of votes and to ensure that every vote is counted.
Read more about Clinton's positions On the Issues.
