Hillary Rodham Clinton Collection

There has probably been no more polarizing figure in American politics in the last 50 years than Hillary Rodham Clinton. From the moment she stepped out of Yale Law School in 1973, she has been a lightning rod for political opposition. Starting out as a staffer on the House Judiciary Committee investigating President Richard M. Nixon for his involvement in Watergate to her time as First Lady of Arkansas under her husband, Governor Bill Clinton to her causes of health care as First Lady of the United States, then a US Senator from New York on September 11, 2001, a serious candidate for president of the United States in 2008, losing to Barack Obama and 2016, losing to Donald Trump, and as a Secretary of State, there was something about Hillary that people didn't like. Funny thing though, among all of the scandal with Vince Foster, Whitewater, Benghazi, and 30,000 plus missing e-mails, had she been a man, she would have most likely been a giant in politics and the country may have turned a blind eye.

In Post War America, the United States had experienced, starting in 1946 and ending in 1964 what was known as a Baby Boom. This was a generation of children born after World War II who grew up for the most part in the 1950s and early 1960s when life seemed simple.

On October 26, 1947, Hillary Diane Rodham was born to Hugh Rodham and Dorothy (née Howell) Rodham in Chicago. There is a story that started in 1995 that Hillary Clinton said that her mother named her after Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first mountaineers to climb Mount Everest. She said that was the reason for the less common two Ls in her name. But here's the truth, Hillary did not climb Mount Everest until 1953, nearly six years after her birth. This dispute was put to rest in 2006 when it was explained that Hillary Rodham was not named for the mountain climber, but "was a sweet family story her mother shared to inspire greatness in her daughter, to great results I might add."

Growing up in Park Ridge, a suburb of Chicago, Hillary lived in a conservative home. Her father was a self-employed businessman in the textile supplies industries. During World War II, Rodham served in the Navy stationed at the Great Lakes Naval Station where he trained sailors for tours in the Pacific Theater. In 1947, Rodham ran for Chicago Alderman as a Democratic leaning Independent in Chicago's 49th Ward. Rodham came in fifth in a contest of eight candidates receiving only 382 votes or 1.5 percent of the total votes cast. It is believed that Rodham did this to gain favor with the local Cook County Democratic Party political machine in order to capitalize on a building he had invested in in Downtown Chicago.

After that 1947 loss, Rodham spent the rest of his life as a Republican even being a staunch supporter of the 1964 Republican Party Presidential Ticket of Barry Goldwater and William Miller. Rodham would remain a committed Republican for the rest of his life when he passed away in April 1993.

Hillary's mother, Dorothy Howell, started out life in a rather "Dickensian" life as her family described it. Her family often lived in crowded boarding houses and her parents often fought where the marriage ended in divorce in 1927. Dorothy and her younger sister were paid only occasional attention by their parents. When Dorothy was eight and her sister was three, they were put on a train, unsupervised to live with their grandparents in California.

Things didn't get much better as one time, Dorothy got caught trick or treating and as punishment was confined to her room for a year, leaving only to attend school. She was forbidden to eat meals at the table or play outside in the yard. At the age of 14, and in the middle of the Great Depression, Dorothy ran away from home. She found work as a cook, housekeeper, and nanny for a family in San Gabriel, California where she was paid $3.00 a week. Adjusted for inflation, that would be around $66.00 today. The family for whom Dorothy worked for encouraged her to read and go to school. She attended Alhambra High School where she joined clubs and benefited from two teachers.

After her high school graduation in 1937, Dorothy tried to reunite with her mother, but it did not work out. Dorothy said of the failed reunion, "I'd hoped so hard that my mother would love me that I had to take the chance and find out. When she didn't, I had nowhere else to go." After that move, Dorothy took an apartment and found work in an office to support herself.

As a mother, Dorothy encouraged Hillary to have a love of learning so that she could pursue an education and career for herself. Dorothy never wanted gender to keep her daughter from doing what she wanted to do. In a Republican household and a Republican community, Dorothy kept her Democratic politics to herself.

As a young girl, Hillary Rodham was what you would call studious, meaning she was the one kid in your class who could blow a grading curve for the D/F Students of the 1960s. She was active with her church's youth group and her minister even took her and some of the young people in her youth group to listen to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speak in Chicago.

Politically, Hillary was a Republican because her father was a Republican. In 1964, during that campaign she was in fact, a Goldwater Girl. To teach the students in her high school about the issues and the campaign, the Civics teacher had Hillary, the Barry Goldwater supporter and a friend of hers, the Lyndon Johnson supporter debate for the school. The catch was that Hillary would assume the role of President Johnson and her friend would assume the role of Senator Goldwater.

Hillary Rodham graduated from high school in the spring of 1965 and that fall entered Wellesley College. While still a Republican having been president of the Wellesley Young Republicans, by 1968 she became more liberal in her views, particularly when it came to issues like the Vietnam War and civil rights for minorities and women. She resigned her position.

Also, in 1968, Hillary was supporting Gene McCarthy for President. After the assassination of Dr. King, Hillary organized a two day student strike as well as worked with the black students at Wellesley to help recruit more black students and faculty. Because of her role in student government, many of her peers thought that she might become the first woman president.

On May 31, 1969, Hillary Rodham graduated from Wellesley, but before she was off, she had been elected by her fellow classmates to speak at the commencement ceremony. She talked about her generation having the ability to criticize and indestructive protest. And there was still a lot of that to happen in the coming years, but for now, she and a group of friends were going to spend the summer driving to Alaska, doing odd jobs along the way to afford the trip.

Hillary Rodham was from that time of transition in American society. The old ways when it came to women were becoming old fashioned and young women of the early part of the Baby Boom Generation were trying to figure out their way in life. Keep in mind that in 1969, young men were still being drafted and going off to Vietnam. College campuses all over the country were erupting in protest against the war and the draft with the most infamous campus unrest being nearly a year after Hillary graduated from Wellesley, where on May 4, 1970, four students were killed and nine more were wounded by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University. Roe vs. Wade was still three and a half years from being ruled on by the Supreme Court in a 7 - 2 vote in favor of a woman's right to choose. When Hillary took the exam to get into Yale Law School, she was just a handful of women to do so. In an interview in 2019, she spoke of this and how a few young men came to her and the other young women at the test declaring that if any of them, meaning Hillary and the other women, get accepted to Yale Law School that means the same number of men won't and that it will be the women's fault if these men get drafted and sent to Vietnam.

While a student at Yale Law School, Hillary was in the library when she heard a southern voice talk about how Arkansas had the biggest watermelons in the world. There was a long table in the library where the two coeds sat. Hillary walked to the other end of the table and stated, "If you're going to continue staring at me and I am going to stare back, we might as well know who we are." That was the first introduction Bill Clinton had with Hillary Rodham.

Over time, Bill did everything he could to get to know Hillary. He once saw her walking to the registrar's office to sign up for her classes. Bill said he was doing the same thing and asked if they could go together. When the two got to the window the registrar asked, "Bill, what are you doing here? You already signed up for your classes."

Their first "real date" was to visit the Yale Art Museum. At this particular time the museum was closed so Bill made a deal with the custodian that if he opened the museum for them after hours, he would clean up the trash in the courtyard.

While at Yale, Hillary worked for Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project being assigned to work with Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor. It was here that she would learn about migrant issues such as education, health, and housing. One of the things she did was travel south posing as a mother of a child who was moving and was checking out the schools. She was checking on whether the public schools were complying with the desegregation laws.

After graduating from Yale Law School in 1973, Bill Clinton had received a call requesting that he serve as a staffer on the House Judiciary Committee that was investigating Watergate and President Nixon's involvement. Clinton explained that he wanted to go back home to Arkansas and run for Congress in 1974. He then said that Hillary Rodham was there and if they might want to talk with her. Hillary Rodham was going to Washington. Richard Nixon resigned the presidency on August 9, 1974. Hillary needed some time to think about the next phase of her life.

Hillary and Bill were still seeing each other. After graduating from Yale and before she went to Washington, the two of them took a trip to Europe. Bill wanted to show Hillary all of the places he had gone while attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. It was on this trip that Bill Clinton proposed and Hillary Rodham said no. It wasn't that she loved him, it was just that she needed time to think about her future.

After Watergate, Hillary decided to go home to Chicago for a while and think about what she wanted to do. On the way to the airport, she and Bill saw a little red brick house with a for sale sign in the front yard. Hillary had made a comment that that was a sweet looking little house and never thought about it after that. When Bill went to pick her up at the airport, he asked if she remembered that little red brick house that they saw on the way to the airport. She said yes, to which he told her that he bought that house. Hillary finally said yes to a marriage proposal.

The Clintons were married on October 11, 1975. Bill ran for Arkansas Attorney General in 1976, two years after his 1974 Congressional defeat and two years before he ran for Arkansas Governor in 1978. Hillary took a job at the Rose Law Firm. By 1980, the Clintons were parents when Chelsea was born on February 27th and later that year, Bill lost his re-election for Governor. He would be back in 1982 and remain in that position until he resigned in December 1992 after being elected President of the United States.

In 1978, the Clintons were talking to some friends, Jim and Susan McDougal about a real estate investment known as Whitewater. What was going to happen was this land along the Whitewater River in Flippin, Arkansas was going to be developed for vacation properties. The Clintons had lost money in the venture. While he was running for president in 1992, a story broke about this investment and tried connecting the Clintons to an S and L scandal that the McDougsls were involved in with Madison Gauranty Savings and Loan. A criminal referral was made to the FBI on September 2, 1992 naming Bill and Hillary Clinton as witnesses. After the suicide of Vince Foster in 1993 and documents about Whitewater were removed from his White House office the issue would be sent to the Office of Independent Council and after some investigating, the original Independent Council said basically that there was no there, there.

Kenneth Starr took over the investigation, and by 1994, both the President and the First Lady held separate press conferences to explain their involvement with the McDougals and other issues surrounding the scandal. Starr even went so far as to call Mrs. Clinton to testify before a grand jury in early 1996.

When she became First Lady in 1993, President Clinton who in 1992 as a candidate for President said that we would get two for the price of one had tapped the First Lady to head the task force to get universal health care for the American people. Unfortunately, the Clintons did not get what they wanted, but they did get things for the people like the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in 1998, which expanded Medicaid to children who qualify for Medicaid based on family size and household gross income. They also ended drive by deliveries which meant that if a woman gives birth by vaginal delivery, the mother and baby can stay in the hospital for two days. If a woman gives birth by cesarean, the mother and baby can stay in the hospital for four days.

Because Whitewater was going nowhere and Starr wanted something on the Clintons, he got it in the form of an affair that the President had from November 1995 to March 1997 with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. At a January 26, 1998 After School event the President was asked about Lewinsky to which he famously said that he did not have sexual relations with that woman. The next day, Hillary went on the Today Show to defend her husband and blaming a "vast right wing conspiracy." In August 1998, the President testified before the grand jury and later that evening addressed the nation about a relationship both he and Lewinsky had together. The President of the United States was in the preverbal doghouse as far as the First Lady was concerned. Bill Clinton would be impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 and the acquitted by the Senate in February 1999.

Now, with less than 30 months left in Bill Clinton's presidency after that August 1998 grand jury testimony, it was now Hillary's time. For anyone doubting Hillary Clinton's ability, just remember that there would not have been a President Bill Clinton without the help of Hillary Clinton. There is a story of the Clintons going to Hillary's 30th class reunion in Chicago back in 1995. The motorcade drove past a gas station where the First Lady noticed that a boy she used to date was working there. The President asked her what that gas station employee would be doing today had she married him instead. Hillary responded by saying that he would probably be President today.

So the sights were set on the US Senate seat from New York that was being vacated by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 2000. This was also the Senate seat that Robert F. Kennedy held until his assassination in June 1968. At first, it looked as though Mrs. Clinton's chief Republican challenger would be New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani but early in 2000, Mayor Giuliani was diagnosed with prorate cancer and dropped out of the race. Clinton would face Congressman Rick Lazio from New York's 2nd Congressional District. The 2000 New York Senate race would at the time be the most expensive ever conducted. One big controversy during that campaign took place during the Buffalo Debate when Congressman Lazio walked across the debate stage to Mrs. Clinton's podium to make her sign a campaign pledge. At the time, this action was looked at as bullying and chauvinistic making Lazio become the example of what not to do when debating a female opponent. In the end, on November 7, 2000, a day that would spark a controversial outcome of the 2000 Presidential Election between Vice President Al Gore and Governor George W. Bush because of "Florida! Florida! Florida!", Hillary Rodham Clinton became the first First Lady in American history to be elected to public office. She won the New York Senate seat with 55.3 percent of the vote to Lazio's 43.0 percent of the vote. Hillary Rodham Clinton was a political force in her own rite now.

September 11, 2001 started out like any other late summer day. The entire continental United States was nothing but clear blue skies from Atlantic to Pacific. New York City was having a mayoral primary that Tuesday as Mayor Giuliano was term limited. Then, at 8:46AM American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. At first, people wanted to believe that this was an accident, but all of that changed as Americans were watching the morning news programs they saw on live television at 9:03AM United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. This was no accident, this was an attack of terror on the United States.

With the help of her Senior Senator Chuck Schumer, they were able to go to the President to secure $21 billion for the World Trade Center redevelopment. In addition, she voted for the USA Patriot Act in 2001 and in 2006 voted for the USA Patriot Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005. She took a leading role in the investigation of the subsequent health issues that 9/11 First Responders suffered. Also in 2001, Senator Clinton strongly supported the United States military actions in Afghanistan citing that it was a chance to combat terrorism while improving the lives of Afghan women who were suffering under the Taliban government. In October 2002, along with Senate colleague Joe Biden and other Democrats, Senator Clinton voted in favor of the Iraq War Resolution. This resolution authorized President George W. Bush to use military force against Iraq. Clinton would go to Iraq in 2005 where she had observed that the insurgency had failed to disrupt the democratically held elections and parts of the country were functioning well.

Hillary Clinton would go on to win re-election in 2006, but she was not going to stay there. She had her sights set on retaking the White House for the Clintons in 2008 and announced her candidacy for President on January 20, 2007. She was on her way as the Democratic Party's frontrunner to the nomination, but they did not expect a first term US Senator from Illinois named Barack Obama to give her a run for her money.

The contest for delegates for the nomination did not start well for Hillary Clinton. In the Iowa Caucus that was scheduled to be on January 3, 2008, with some pretty high profile Iowa Democrats endorsing her, Hillary was expected to win that contest. As it turned out, Barack Obama came in first with Former Senator and 2004 Vice Presidential Nominee John Edwards, D-NC came in second. Hillary came in a close third. Hillary would then win the New Hampshire Primary. And that was the Democratic Party's Primary Season; a series of back and forth. Finally, on June 7, 2008, Senator Hillary Clinton suspended her campaign for the nomination and endorsed Barack Obama for President. There had been talk of a possible Unity Ticket with Obama naming Clinton as his running mate. In reality, the Obama campaign never even vetted her and Senator Obama chose former rival candidate Senator Joe Biden, D-DE as his running mate. At the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Senator Clinton released her delegates urging them to vote for Barack Obama. Then, on August 27, 2008, Hillary Clinton made a motion that Barack Obama be nominated by acclimation.

After the campaign, Hillary had planned to go back to her work in the Senate. But because of the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 and going into 2009, that would require a President Obama to focus on domestic issues. He needed someone well known and respected by world leaders to handle foreign affairs. While Joe Biden was the new Vice President, President-Elect Obama turned to his former rival and asked Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State.

While Clinton did not want to leave the Senate, she felt the new position in the Obama administration would be a difficult and exciting adventure. A week before the Inauguration, she was voted 16 to 1 by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to move her nomination to the full Senate for confirmation. She was confirmed as the 67th Secretary of State on January 21, 2009 by a vote of 94 to 2. It is worth noting that her popularity at this time was 65 percent, the highest it was since the Lewinsky scandal. Later that day, Hillary Clinton resigned her seat in the Senate and became another first; the first First Lady to serve in the Cabinet.

Knowing that there was a lot of damage to repair from the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration, Hillary spent much of the first days at Foggy Bottom on the phone reassuring world leaders. A lot of what Secretary Clinton promoted was basic human rights for women and LGBTQ people around the world. Then, on May 1, 2011, along with Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and the rest of the National Security Team; Secretary Clinton sat in the White House Situation Room watching as Navy Seals overtook Osama bin Laden's compound where he was killed. The world's greatest terror mastermind of the 21st Century was gone.

On September 11, 2012, during a United States diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya was attacked resulting in the deaths of four Americans including Ambassador Christopher Stevens. A month later, Secretary Clinton took responsibility surrounding security lapses and blaming the differing explanations of what happened were the result of the fog of war. Towards the end of her tenure, Clinton took part in Congressional hearings on Benghazi accepting formal responsibility for not having a direct role in the specific discussions beforehand about the consulate security. The most memorable statement from that hearing was from Secretary Clinton where she stated, "With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans. Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided that they'd go kill some Americans? What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and to do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator."

The other high profile hearing on Benghazi took place on October 22, 2015, four months after she announced her candidacy for President in 2016. This was the 11 hour hearing that was later admitted by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-CA23 that the Republican Party in the House of Representatives did this to hurt Hillary Clinton politically.

After eight years of Barack Obama, the campaign for president was completely wide open. Vice President Biden had lost his eldest son, Beau to brain cancer on May 30, 2015 and announced in October 2015, the Vice President announced that due to the grieving his family was going through, he would not be a candidate for President in 2016. This made the two head to head candidates for the Democratic Party Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, D-NY and Senator Bernie Sanders, I-VT. Former Senator Jim Webb, D-VA, Governor Lincoln Chafee, I-RI, and Governor Martin O'Malley, D-MD were also running. The Republican Party saw the greatest number of candidates running like Former Governor Jeb Bush, R-FL, Governor John Kasich, R-OH, Governor Rick Perry, R-TX, Governor Bobby Jindal, R-LA, Former Governor Jim Gilmore, R-VA, Governor Chris Christie, R-NJ, Former Governor George Pataki, R-NY, Former Governor Mike Huckabee, R-AR, Governor Scott Walker, R-WI, Former Senator Rick Santorum, R-PA, Senator Lindsay Graham, R-SC, Senator Ted Cruz, R-TX, Senator Marco Rubio, R-FL, Senator Rand Paul, R-KY, Mark Everson, R-NY, Carley Fiorina, R-CA, Ben Carson, R-FL, and Donald Trump, R-NY. At the time, a Trump candidacy was not taken very seriously when he announced his intention to run for President in June 2015. In his Announcement Speech, Trump spoke of Mexicans being murderers, rapists, drug runners, and some were fine people. It seemed that Donald Trump was saying all of the wrong things to get attention so that NBC would notice and give him a $2 million raise for doing his reality program, The Apprentice.

Early in 2015, one issue that dogged Secretary Clinton was the issue of 30,000 plus missing e-mails while she was at the State Department. It was such a major issue that it was talked about in cable news and the Primary Debates. It got to the point that in the first Democratic Debate Bernie Sanders said that no one wanted to hear about the e-mails anymore. Benghazi ended up also being a ghost of political past that Hillary could not shake. Then there was the issue of the Democratic National Committee sabotaging the delegate count against Bernie Sanders.

Trump's momentum was gaining traction and he won the Republican nomination.

Now that the candidates were chosen, Hillary Clinton for the Democrats and Donald Trump for the Republicans, Trump again never expected to win. He very much expected to lose and use that loss to play victim of a rigged system and use that loss to start a media company to counter what a President Hillary Clinton was doing.

But, after an FBI investigation into the Hillary Clinton e-mails was announced just days before the election, Donald Trump won the Electoral Vote with 304 Electoral Votes and the presidency. However, for the second time since 2000, the winner of the presidency lost the popular vote. Like Al Gore in 2000, a plurality of voters wanted Hillary Clinton in 2016, but it was not meant to be. Other theories were that the Bernie Bro's stayed home thinking that Hillary didn't need their votes or voted for Jill Stein.

The next day, Hillary conceded the Election to Donald Trump wishing him and the country the best for the next four years. Given the bitterness of the campaign, Hillary felt it her duty to attend the 2017 Inauguration to show the country what a peaceful transfer of power looked like.

So Hillary Rodham Clinton retired from public life spending time with her grandchildren and writing two more books; WHAT HAPPENED, 2017 and with Chelsea Clinton, THE BOOK OF GUTSY WOMEN, 2019. These two books were added to the already six volumes: IT TAKES A VILLAGE, 1996, DEAR SOCKS, DEAR BUDDY, 1998, AN INVITATION TO THE WHITE HOUSE, 2000, LIVING HISTORY, 2003, HARD CHOICES, 2014, and with running mate Tim Kaine, STRONGER TOGETHER, 2016.

This collection is dedicated to one of our most consequential First Ladies since Eleanor Roosevelt; Hillary Rodham Clinton.