Rebels in White Gloves: Coming of Age with the Wellesley Class of '69

Amazon.com Amazon.com Review (ISBN 0812925017, Hardcover)

The riddle of how Hillary Rodham Clinton metamorphosed from a Goldwater Republican into the leading liberal of her generation is one that will keep whole generations of future historians guessing well into the coming millennium, and you can bet they'll all have well-thumbed copies of Miriam Horn's Rebels in White Gloves. Wellesley has always been the most staunchly conservative of the Seven Sisters women's colleges, but even so, it was no match for the student antiwar protests and rising feminist movement. "We are, all of us, exploring a world that none of us understand," Hillary Rodham noted in the commencement address she delivered to the class of '69. "The only tool we have to use ultimately is our lives." Horn's book is about the myriad ways the future first lady and her classmates used their lives--and, along the way, reinvented the notion of womanhood. Individual stories are given sociological context and grouped together under headings such as "In Search of Self," "Rebellions and New Solidarities," and "Balancing Work and Family." A senior writer for U.S. News and World Report, Horn is an especially gifted interviewer; through her questions, the Wellesley Class of '69 emerge as wise, well-spoken women. And, at this far remove, it is interesting to see what kind of peace they've made with their cloistered Wellesley selves. --Patrizia DiLucchio