Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has spent three decades under the harsh glare of the national spotlight, first as an unusually outspoken first lady guiding her husband’s health care policy and eventually as the first woman to earn a major party’s presidential nomination.

Born Hillary Rodham in 1947, she grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and graduated from Wellesley College and Yale Law School.

She married Bill Clinton in 1975 and served as the first lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and from 1983 to 1992. She served as first lady of the United States from 1993 to 2001.

In 2000, Clinton was elected to the Senate, representing New York in the chamber for eight years. After her first failed presidential campaign, she served as secretary of State from 2009 to 2013.

Polls show she is one of the most admired women in the world. But at the same time, she is viewed unfavorably by a substantial number of Americans.

During both high points and low points in her career, women’s rights have been on Clinton’s mind.

In 1995, she said at a United Nations conference on women in Beijing that “human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights.”

Toward the end of her concession speech after the 2016 election, she offered a message to young girls: “Never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.”

— Naomi Jagoda