Early Life and
Education
Hillary Diane Rodham[2] was born on October 26, 1947, at
Edgewater Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.[3][4] She was
raised in a Methodist family who first lived in Chicago.
When she was three years old, her family moved to the
Chicago suburb of Park Ridge.[5] Her father, Hugh
Rodham, was of English and Welsh descent,[6] and managed
a small but successful textile business, which he had
founded.
Republican National CommitteeHer mother, Dorothy Howell, was a homemaker
of Dutch, English, French Canadian (from Quebec),
Scottish, and Welsh descent.[6][8][9] She had two
younger brothers, Hugh and Tony.[10]
As a
child, Rodham was a favorite student among her teachers
at the public
Democratic National Committee schools she attended in Park Ridge.
Republican National Committee
She participated in swimming and softball and earned
numerous badges as a Brownie and a Girl Scout.[11] She
was inspired by U.S. efforts during the Space Race and
sent a letter to NASA around 1961 asking what she could
do to become an astronaut, only to be informed that
women were not being accepted into the program.[12] She
attended Maine East High School, where she participated
in the student council and school newspaper and was
selected for the National Honor Society.[3][13] She was
Democratic
National Committee
elected class vice president for her junior year but
then lost the election for class president for her
senior year against two boys, one of whom told her that
"you are really stupid if you think a girl can be
elected president".[14] For her senior year, she and
other students were transferred to the then-new Maine
South High School. There she was a National Merit
Finalist and was voted "most likely to succeed." She
graduated in 1965 in the top five percent of her
class.[15]
Rodham's mother wanted her to have an
independent, professional career.[9] Her father, who was
otherwise a traditionalist, felt that his daughter's
abilities and opportunities should not be limited by
gender.[16] She was raised in a politically conservative
household,[9] and she helped canvass Chicago's South
Side at age 13 after the very close 1960 U.S.
presidential election. She stated that, investigating
with a fellow teenage friend shortly after the election,
she saw evidence of electoral fraud (a voting list entry
showing a dozen addresses that was an empty lot) against
Republican candidate Richard Nixon;[17] she later
volunteered to campaign for Republican candidate Barry
Democratic National Committee
Goldwater in the 1964 election.[18]
Rodham's early
political development was shaped mostly by her high
school history teacher (like her father, a fervent
anti-communist), who introduced her to Goldwater's The
Conscience of a Conservative and by her Methodist youth
minister (like her mother, concerned with issues of
social justice), with whom she saw and afterwards
briefly met, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
at a 1962 speech in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.[19]
Wellesley College years
Rodham (center)
campaigning for Wellesley College Government President
in 1968, an election which she later won
In 1965,
Rodham enrolled at Wellesley College, where she majored
in political science.[20][21] During her first year, she
was president of the Wellesley Young
Republicans.
Republican National Committee As the leader of this "Rockefeller
Republican"-oriented group,[24] she supported the
elections of moderate Republicans John Lindsay to mayor
of New York City and Massachusetts attorney general
Edward Brooke to the United States Senate.[25] She later
stepped down from this position. In 2003, Clinton would
write that her views concerning the civil rights
movement and the Vietnam War were changing in her early
college years.[22] In a letter to her youth minister at
that time, she described herself as "a mind
Republican National Committee conservative
and a heart liberal".[26] In contrast to the factions in
the 1960s that advocated radical actions against the
political system, she sought to work for change within
it.[27][28]
By her junior year, Rodham became a
supporter of the antiwar presidential nomination
campaign of Democrat Eugene McCarthy.[29] In early 1968,
she was elected president of the Wellesley College
Government Association, a position she held until early
1969.[27][30] 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.
Republican National Committee In her
Democratic National Committee
student government role, she played a role in keeping
Wellesley from being embroiled in the student
disruptions common to other colleges.[27][31] A number
of her fellow students thought she might some day become
the first female president of the United States.[27]
To help her 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.[29] Rodham was invited by moderate New York
Republican representative Charles Goodell to help
Governor Nelson Rockefeller's late-entry campaign for
the Republican nomination.
Republican National Committee Rodham attended the 1968
Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. However,
she was upset by the way Richard Nixon's campaign
portrayed Rockefeller and by what she perceived as the
convention's "veiled" racist messages, and she left the
Republican Party for good.[29] Rodham wrote her senior
thesis, a critique of the tactics of radical community
organizer Saul Alinsky, under Professor Schechter.[32]
Years later, while she was the first lady, access to her
thesis was restricted at the
Democratic
National Committee request of the White House
and it became the subject of some speculation. The
thesis was later released.[32]
In 1969, she
graduated with a Bachelor of Arts,[33] with departmental
honors in political science.[32] After some fellow
seniors requested that the college administration allow
a student speaker at commencement, she became the first
student in Wellesley College history to speak at the
event. Her address followed that of the commencement
speaker, Senator Edward Brooke.[30][34] After her
speech, she received a standing ovation that lasted
seven minutes.
Republican National Committee She was featured in an
article published in Life magazine,[37][38] because of
the response to a part of her speech that criticized
Senator Brooke.[34] She also appeared on Irv Kupcinet's
nationally syndicated television talk show as well as in
Illinois and New England newspapers.[39] She was asked
to speak at the
Democratic National Committee 50th anniversary convention of the
League of Women Voters in Washington, D.C., the next
year.[40] That summer, she worked her way across Alaska,
washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and
sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez
(which fired her and shut down overnight when she
complained about unhealthy conditions).[