Jill Biden
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Jill Biden (born June 3, 1951, Hammonton, New Jersey, U.S.) is an American first lady (2021– ), wife of Joe Biden, the 46th president of the United States. She previously served as second lady (2009–17) when her husband was vice president under President Barack Obama.
Early life and teaching career
Jill Jacobs was born in New Jersey but mostly grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia, where her father was vice president of a savings and loan institution. She began working while in high school. Following her graduation in 1969, she briefly attended a community college to study fashion merchandising but soon changed her mind. She married Bill Stevenson in 1970, but the couple separated in 1974 and divorced the following year. During this time she attended the University of Delaware, earning a bachelor’s degree in 1975.
Marriage to Joe Biden
That year Jill Biden met Joe Biden on a blind date arranged by his brother. At that time Joe Biden was a U.S. senator and a single father of two young boys, having lost his first wife and infant daughter in a car crash three years previously. The couple married on June 17, 1977, and had a child of their own in 1981. In the meantime, Jill Biden worked as an English teacher at St. Mark’s High School in Wilmington, Delaware. She later taught emotionally troubled adolescents at a psychiatric hospital while studying at West Chester State College (now West Chester University of Pennsylvania), from which she earned a master’s degree in education in 1981. She devoted the next two years to raising her children before returning to her teaching career.
Continuing education while campaigning for Joe
Jill Biden continued teaching while supporting Joe Biden in his first run for president in 1988. In 1991 she earned a second master’s degree, this one in English, from Villanova University in Pennsylvania. After working at various high schools, she became a professor at Delaware Technical Community College in 1993, where she remained until 2008. In addition, she continued her studies, earning a doctorate in education from the University of Delaware in 2007.
Second lady
Joe Biden again ran for president in 2008 but ultimately dropped out. However, Obama later chose him as his running mate, and Jill Biden campaigned for the ticket while continuing to teach. After he was sworn in as vice president in 2009, she became a professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria. Jill Biden is believed to be the first vice president’s spouse to maintain a paying job throughout his tenure. In addition to teaching, she worked with the Obama administration in support of community colleges and their mission. She also helped support the families of members of the military, and she wrote a children’s book, Don’t Forget, God Bless Our Troops (2012), about the experiences of a child whose father was deployed. The book was inspired by the deployment of their son, Beau Biden, who later died from cancer (2015).
In 2017 Joe Biden’s second term ended, and the couple left Washington, D.C.
First lady
In 2020 Joe Biden announced his third presidential bid, and, for the first time, Jill Biden took a leave of absence in order to assume a prominent role in the campaign. In April Joe Biden became the presumptive Democratic nominee. At the party’s national convention, which was a virtual event because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jill Biden gave a speech in which she extolled her husband’s character and his ability to help heal a country that was struggling with both the virus and extreme political polarization. After a difficult and contentious campaign, Joe Biden was elected president, defeating Pres. Donald Trump, on November 3. Trump and other Republicans, however, alleged voter fraud, and on January 6, 2021, Trump supporters attacked the Capitol as Congress was in the process of certifying the election results. Amid a massive security presence Joe Biden was sworn in as president on January 20.
As first lady, Jill Biden maintained her teaching career in the English department at Northern Virginia Community College and continued to be actively involved with several causes, including the Cancer Moonshot initiative and the Joining Forces program to support military families. She was also instrumental in the effort to raise federal funding for women’s health research.
Joe Biden ran for reelection in 2024 and again faced Trump, the Republican nominee. However, after Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, a growing number of Democrats urged him to withdraw from the race. Despite the calls for him to step down, Jill Biden remained a stalwart supporter of her husband and urged him to stay in the race. Joe Biden, however, ultimately decided to terminate his reelection bid in July 2024. Jill Biden continued to advocate for the Democratic Party, and she appeared with Joe Biden at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where she delivered a speech praising his accomplishments as commander in chief.
For the third time, Jill Biden graced the cover of Vogue magazine, appearing on the August 2024 issue. To many observers, the image captured her strength and composure, which were on display during the tumultuous period in her husband’s reelection campaign.
Books
Jill Biden wrote several other children’s books, including Joey: The Story of Joe Biden, which focused on her husband’s childhood, and Willow the White House Cat (2024), about the first cat. Biden’s autobiography, Where the Light Enters: Building a Family, Discovering Myself, appeared in 2019.