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Sunday 14 June 2015

Hillary's Typist Mum

Hillary Clinton made much of her mother's early-life struggles when she launched her US presidential campaign in earnest at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park on Roosevelt Island on the East River in Manhattan on Saturday.
The setting for the launch was almost appropriate, since it was quite close to where the Hammond Typewriter Company factory once stood.
 Dorothy Emma Howell in 1940
Dorothy in the 1940 US census for Cook County, Illinois
What wasn't mentioned in Clinton's speech was that Dorothy Emma Howell Rodham (1919-2011) was actually a typist. It was Dorothy's only proper, paid job before she became a homemaker. She was working as a typist-stenographer with the Columbia Lace Company in Chicago when she met Hillary's father, travelling salesman Hugh Ellsworth Rodham, in 1937.
A young Dorothy Howell
After graduating from Alhambra High School in Los Angeles County, California, Dorothy moved to Chicago. She and Hugh Rodham married in early 1942. Hillary was born in October 1947.
Dorothy's senior class photo, Alhambra, summer 1937
Below, typewriters at Alhambra High School, 1937:

2 comments:

notagain said...

My MOther was a career secretary. Thanks ofr finding these pictures.

notagain said...

Obviously, my own keyboard accuracy leaves something to be desired.