Hillary Rodham Clinton

Clinton, Hillary Rodham

(1947–  ) lawyer, First Lady; born in Park Ridge, Ill. The daughter of a prosperous fabric store owner, she graduated from Wellesley College (1969) and Yale University Law School (1973). In 1975 she married Bill Clinton, a fellow Yale Law School graduate. She practiced law while he became attorney general and then governor of Arkansas, and during this time gained a national reputation for her contributions to issues of women's and children's rights and public education, through her publications, public advocacies, and court cases. (In 1991, before most Americans had heard of her, The National Law Journal named her one of the 100 most powerful lawyers in America.) During the 1992 presidential campaign, she emerged as a dynamic and valued partner of her husband, and as president he named her to head the Task Force on National Health Reform (1993). Inevitably there were charges of everything from old-fashioned nepotism to new-fashioned feminism, and she became the butt of both good-natured humor and vicious accusations, but less partisan observers recognized her as simply an example of the new American woman.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.