--- title: Hillary Clinton: Photos of the Future First Lady as a Wellesley Grad description: A series of photos -- most of which never ran in LIFE -- of Hillary Rodham in June 1969, shortly after she graduated from Wellesley. canonical: https://time.com/3502935/life-with-hillary-portraits-of-a-wellesley-grad-1969/ author: Ben Cosgrove article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-02-15T17:02:03.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:07:26.257Z og:title: Hillary Clinton: Photos of the Future First Lady as a Wellesley Grad og:description: A series of photos -- most of which never ran in LIFE -- of Hillary Rodham in June 1969, shortly after she graduated from Wellesley. og:url: https://time.com/3502935/life-with-hillary-portraits-of-a-wellesley-grad-1969/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebf71d7a960482e8/6987606e55a85989a7a83328/hillary-clinton-in-1969-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1733 og:image:height: 975 og:image:alt: Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Hillary Clinton: Photos of the Future First Lady as a Wellesley Grad twitter:description: A series of photos -- most of which never ran in LIFE -- of Hillary Rodham in June 1969, shortly after she graduated from Wellesley. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltebf71d7a960482e8/6987606e55a85989a7a83328/hillary-clinton-in-1969-01.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # LIFE With Hillary: Portraits of a Wellesley Grad, 1969 > Sponsored content. 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Worth Your Time is TIME's culture recommendation newsletter, edited by culture editor Eliza Berman. Twice a week it surfaces the books, shows, films and ideas TIME's editors think are worth your attention, and explains why. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Does TIME have a culture newsletter? Yes. Worth Your Time is TIME's culture newsletter, published Tuesdays and Saturdays. #### Who writes TIME's culture recommendations? Culture editor Eliza Berman writes Worth Your Time, drawing on TIME's critics and culture desk. #### Is Worth Your Time free? Yes. It is a free newsletter available at time.com/newsletters. by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 15, 2014 5:02 PM UTC  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images by [Ben Cosgrove](https://time.com/author/ben-cosgrove/) ## Ben Cosgrove Feb 15, 2014 5:02 PM UTC Long before Yale Law, before Arkansas, before her marriage to Bill, before the Senate, the White House, her own (first?) run for the White House, the State Department, the [“texts from Hillary” meme](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/texts-from-hillary) that just keeps on giving and so many other highlights (and lowlights) of her remarkable life, she was Hillary Diane Rodham, the older sister of two brothers and the over-achieving daughter of loving, politically conservative parents from suburban Park Ridge, Ill. Intelligent, intensely curious and, from a young age, driven to find a way to somehow _contribute_ to the world around her, Hillary Rodham enrolled at [Wellesley College](http://www.wellesley.edu/) in the fall of 1965\. It was there, in Massachusetts, that the moderate Republican underwent her transformation (she might characterize it as “an evolution”) to committed Democrat. 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.” Her speech was, perhaps not surprisingly, less strident and confrontational than those of the other student speakers quoted in the issue; as early as 1969, Hillary was showing signs of that phenomenal ability to modulate her message — without diluting or compromising it — that helps explain so much of her success in public life. The other student speakers featured in that June 1969 issue included Yale’s William Thompson; Justin Simon at Brandeis; Mills College’s Stephanie Mills, now an author and fellow at the Post Carbon Institute; and Brown University’s Ira Magaziner — a high-profile student activist who went on to become a business strategist and, coincidentally (or not), a senior adviser in the Clinton White House. Today, Magaziner works for the Clinton Foundation. [\[See all of TIME.com’s coverage of Hillary Clinton\]](http://topics.time.com/hillary-clinton/) Here, LIFE.com presents a series of pictures by photographer Lee Balterman, only one of which would run in the June 20 issue of LIFE, made at the Rodham home in Park Ridge in mid-June 1969, a week and a half after she graduated from Wellesley. Leaving aside the insights into late-Sixties fashion that these pictures afford, one senses in Balterman’s informal portraits a nimble — and perhaps somewhat restless — intellect at play. _Here_, the pictures suggest, _is a self-possessed young woman coming fully into her own._ In the LIFE archives, meanwhile, one finds tantalizing insights into the younger Hillary that never made it into the magazine. For instance, in a note dated June 11, 1969, that accompanied Balterman’s rolls of film when they were sent from Illinois to LIFE’s offices in New York, we learn that Hillary told reporter Joan Downs that “press accounts of her commencement speech were vastly different from what she actually said because the speech wasn’t written out and taped transcripts were unavailable until several days after commencement.” “She’s also quite concerned” the note continues, “that it be made clear she was not attacking Senator Brooke personally.” Senator Edward Brooke, the first African-American elected to the Senate and the last Republican Senator elected from Massachusetts until Scott Brown’s election in 2010, spoke before Hillary Rodham at Wellesley’s commencement, and she deviated from her prepared remarks to address at least part of what he said. [\[Read a transcript of her commencement speech here\]](http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/1969/053169hillary.html) Another Balterman note in the archive, meanwhile, written in the photographer’s own hand, points to a less dramatic, if no less revealing, element of the photo shoot: “Had to go for nothing more than informal portraits, but should be some good expressions & hand gestures, etc.,” the note reads, before ending with a simple and, all these years later, somehow touching observation: “Her glasses helped.” _Ben Cosgrove is the Editor of LIFE.com_ Liz Ronk, who edited this gallery, is the Photo Editor for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter at [@LizabethRonk](https://twitter.com/LizabethRonk).  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969\. This image appeared in the June 20, 1969, issue of LIFE. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Hillary Rodham (later Hillary Rodham Clinton), Park Ridge, Illinois, June 1969. Lee Balterman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images   LIFE magazine, June 20, 1969, "Class of '69" page spreads. (Best viewed using "Full Screen" option, at right.) Life Magazine  LIFE magazine, June 20, 1969, "Class of '69" page spreads. (Best viewed using "Full Screen" option, at right.) Life Magazine  LIFE magazine, June 20, 1969, "Class of '69" page spreads. (Best viewed using "Full Screen" option, at right.) 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