In a great diary by FloridaGeorge, there was the following not-so-great comment:
Nobody would have heard of Hillary if she did not marry a president. What the hell did she do before that?
Actually, she did quite a lot.
I responded to the what-the-hell comment with just some of Hillary’s accomplishments before she married Bill Clinton in 1975. This is an expanded version…
Hillary making news … before marrying Bill.
In 1969, Hillary Rodham became the first student (ever) to deliver a commencement address at Wellesley College. She was featured in LIFE magazine article: "The Class of '69.” this achievement was again discussed in a 2014 TIME Magazine article:
By the time she graduated from Wellesley in May 1969, Hillary Rodham was already such a notable figure that she was featured, along with four other speakers from four other schools — and excerpts from their commencement addresses — in the June 20, 1969, issue of LIFE, in an article titled, simply, “The Class of ’69.”
Hillary’s Commencement Speech (which you can read here) echoes some of the themes she talks about today. But what I found intriguing were the remarks of Ruth M. Adams, ninth president of Wellesley College, when introducing Hillary. It gives a snapshot of a young Hillary well on her way to leadership:
In addition to inviting Senator Brooke to speak to them this morning, the Class of '69 has expressed a desire [for a student] to speak to them and for them at this morning's commencement. There was no debate so far as I could ascertain as to who their spokesman was to be: Miss Hillary Rodham. Member of this graduating class, she is a major in political science and a candidate for the degree with honors. In four years she has combined academic ability with active service to the College, her junior year having served as a Vil Junior, and then as a member of Senate and during the past year as president of College Government and presiding officer of College Senate. She is also cheerful, good humored, good company, and a good friend to all of us and it is a great pleasure to present to this audience Miss Hillary Rodham.
Hillary working in Washington, DC … before marrying Bill.
In 1970, she secured a grant to work at Marian Wright Edelman's Washington Research Project, where she was assigned to Senator Walter Mondale's Subcommittee on Migratory Labor.
While there, she interviewed the families of migrant laborers and reported her findings to Walter Mondale's Senate subcommittee on migrant workers, researching migrant problems in housing, sanitation, health and education.
In 1972, Marian sent Hillary to work uncover in the deep south to establish proof of “Segregation Academies.” From a New York Times article:
On a humid summer day in 1972, Hillary Rodham walked into this town’s new private academy, a couple of cinder-block classrooms erected hurriedly amid fields of farmland, and pretended to be someone else.
Playing down her flat Chicago accent, she told the school’s guidance counselor that her husband had just taken a job in Dothan, that they were a churchgoing family and that they were looking for a school for their son. …
… [the] 24-year-old law student, was working for Marian Wright Edelman, the civil rights activist and prominent advocate for children. Mrs. Edelman had sent her to Alabama to help prove that the Nixon administration was not enforcing the legal ban on granting tax-exempt status to so-called segregation academies, the estimated 200 private academies that sprang up in the South to cater to white families after a 1969 Supreme Court decision forced public schools to integrate.
Her mission was simple: Establish whether the Dothan school was discriminating based on race.
In 1974, she went back to Washington, D.C. — one of only three women lawyers (out of 43 lawyers) working on the Nixon impeachment inquiry staff and advising the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives during the Watergate Scandal.
By then, Rodham was viewed as someone with a bright political future: Democratic political organizer and consultant Betsey Wright had moved from Texas to Washington the previous year to help guide her career, and Wright thought Rodham had the potential to become a future senator or president.
en.wikipedia.org/...
Other milestones … before marrying Bill.
- During her second year in law school, Hillary volunteered at Yale's Child Study Center, learning about new research on early childhood brain development.
- She also volunteered at New Haven Hospital, where she took on cases of child abuse, and the city Legal Services, providing free legal service to the poor.
-
Her first scholarly article, "Children Under the Law", was published in the Harvard Educational Review in late 1973.[52] Discussing the new children's rights movement, it stated that "child citizens" were "powerless individuals"[53] and argued that children should not be considered equally incompetent from birth to attaining legal age, but that instead courts should presume competence except when there is evidence otherwise, on a case-by-case basis.[54] The article became frequently cited in the field.
-
Hillary was recruited by political advisor Anne Wexler to work on the 1970 campaign of Connecticut U.S. Senate candidate Joseph Duffey. Hillary later credited Wexler with providing her first job in politics.
-
(Aside: As I type this, I realized she did this work while simultaneously attending Yale Law and earning her Juris Doctor Degree in 1973 — wow! I feel like a slacker in comparison.)
An Accomplished Woman In Her Own Right.
We’ve all heard the accusation that Hillary rode her husband’s coattails into politics. Her resume shows this is clearly not true. And I have to wonder if it may have been the other way around. Hillary had worked and built a respected reputation in Washington … way before she married Bill.