Hillary Rodham Clinton
67th United States Secretary of State
Incumbent
Assumed office January 21, 2009
President	Barack Obama
Deputy	William Burns (2011-present) James Steinberg (2009-2011)
Preceded by	Condoleezza Rice
United States Senator from New York
In office January 3, 2001 – January 21, 2009
Preceded by	Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Succeeded by	Kirsten Gillibrand
First Lady of the United States
In office January 20, 1993 – January 20, 2001
Preceded by	Barbara Bush
Succeeded by	Laura Bush
First Lady of Arkansas
In office January 11, 1983 – December 12, 1992
Preceded by	Gay Daniels White
Succeeded by	Betty Tucker
In office January 9, 1979 – January 19, 1981
Preceded by	Barbara Pryor
Succeeded by	Gay Daniels White
Personal details
Born	Hillary Diane Rodham (1947-10-26) October 26, 1947 (age 64) Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Political party	Democratic Party (1968–present)
Other political affiliations	Republican Party (before 1968)
Spouse(s)	Bill Clinton
Children	Chelsea Clinton
Residence	Chappaqua, New York
Alma mater	Wellesley College Yale Law School
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Methodist
Signature
Website	Official website

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( /ˈhɪləri daɪˈæn ˈrɒdəm ˈklɪntən/; born October 26, 1947) is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election, Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham first attracted national attention in 1969 for her remarks as the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. She embarked on a career in law after graduating from Yale Law School in 1973. Following a stint as a Congressional legal counsel, she moved to Arkansas in 1974 and married Bill Clinton in 1975. Rodham cofounded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977 and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, she successfully led a task force to reform Arkansas's education system. She sat on the board of directors of Wal-Mart Stores and several other corporations.

In 1994, as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a 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. Her years as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. The only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, she testified before a federal grand jury in 1996 due to the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with wrongdoing in this or several other investigations during her husband's administration. The state of her marriage was the subject of considerable speculation following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998.

After moving to the state of New York, Clinton was elected as a U.S. Senator in 2000. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton was also the first female senator to represent the state. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, including a vote for the Iraq War Resolution. She subsequently opposed the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq and on most domestic issues. Senator Clinton was reelected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost to Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

Obama went on to win the election and appoint Clinton as Secretary of State; Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president's cabinet. She has put into place institutional changes seeking to maximize departmental effectiveness and promote the empowerment of women worldwide, and has set records for most-traveled secretary for time in office. She has been at the forefront of the U.S. response to the Arab Spring, including advocating for the military intervention in Libya. She has used "smart power" as the strategy for asserting U.S. leadership and values in the world and has championed the use of social media in getting the U.S. message out.

Early life and education[link]

Early life[link]

Hillary Diane Rodham^{[nb 1]} was born at Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.^[1][2] She was raised in a United Methodist family, first in Chicago and then, from the age of three, in suburban Park Ridge, Illinois.^[3] Her father, Hugh Ellsworth Rodham (1911–1993), was the son of Welsh and English immigrants;^[4] he managed a successful small business in the textile industry.^[5] Her mother, Dorothy Emma Howell (1919–2011), was a homemaker of English, Scottish, French, French Canadian, and Welsh descent.^[4][6] Hillary grew up with two younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.

As a child, Hillary Rodham was a teacher's favorite at her public schools in Park Ridge.^[7][8] She participated in swimming, baseball, and other sports.^[7][8] She also earned numerous awards as a Brownie and Girl Scout.^[8] She attended Maine East High School, where she participated in student council, the school newspaper, and was selected for National Honor Society.^[1][9] For her senior year, she was redistricted to Maine South High School, where she was a National Merit Finalist and graduated in the top five percent of her class of 1965.^[9][10] Her mother wanted her to have an independent, professional career,^[6] and her father, otherwise a traditionalist, was of the opinion that his daughter's abilities and opportunities should not be limited by gender.^[11]

Raised in a politically conservative household,^[6] at age thirteen Rodham helped canvass South Side Chicago following the very close 1960 U.S. presidential election, where she found evidence of electoral fraud against Republican candidate Richard Nixon.^[12] She then volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater in the U.S. presidential election of 1964.^[13] Rodham's early political development was shaped most by her high school history teacher (like her father, a fervent anticommunist), who introduced her to Goldwater's classic The Conscience of a Conservative,^[14] and by her Methodist youth minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of social justice), with whom she saw and met civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., in Chicago in 1962.^[15]

Wellesley College years[link]

In 1965, Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored in political science.^[16] During her freshman year, she served as president of the Wellesley Young Republicans;^[17][18] with this Rockefeller Republican-oriented group,^[19] she supported the elections of John Lindsay and Edward Brooke.^[20] She later stepped down from this position, as her views changed regarding the American Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War.^[17] In a letter to her youth minister at this time, she described herself as "a mind conservative and a heart liberal."^[21] In contrast to the 1960s current that advocated radical actions against the political system, she sought to work for change within it.^[22] In her junior year, Rodham became a supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy.^[23] Following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Rodham organized a two-day student strike and worked with Wellesley's black students to recruit more black students and faculty.^[23] In early 1968, she was elected president of the Wellesley College Government Association and served through early 1969;^[22][24] she was instrumental in keeping Wellesley from being embroiled in the student disruptions common to other colleges.^[22] A number of her fellow students thought she might some day become the first woman President of the United States.^[22] So she could better understand her changing political views, Professor Alan Schechter assigned Rodham to intern at the House Republican Conference, and she attended the "Wellesley in Washington" summer program.^[23] Rodham was invited by moderate New York Republican Representative Charles Goodell to help Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for the Republican nomination.^[23] Rodham attended the 1968 Republican National Convention in Miami. However, she was upset by how Richard Nixon's campaign portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the convention's "veiled" racist messages, and left the Republican Party for good.^[23]