Oveta Culp Hobby

Oveta Culp Hobby 1905-95, American public official and newspaper publisher, U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare (1953-55), b. Killeen, Tex. She served as parliamentarian of the Texas house of representatives from 1925 to 1931 and from 1939 to 1941. In 1931 she married William Pettus Hobby, former governor of Texas (1917-21) and publisher of the Houston Post. She held various positions on the newspaper and at the family-owned broadcasting company. In World War II she became (1942) director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC), which, in 1943, became the Women's Army Corps (WAC). She was commissioned colonel in 1943 and remained director until 1945. Appointed Federal Security Administrator under President Eisenhower, she became (Apr., 1953) the first Secretary of the newly created Dept. of Health, Education and Welfare, the only woman in the cabinet. In July, 1955, she resigned to succeed her ailing husband as editor of the Houston Post, later (1965) becoming chairman of the board. The newspaper, now closed, was sold to the Toronto Sun Publishing Co. of Canada in 1983.

Hobby, Oveta Culp (1905–95) lawyer, journalist, and politician, born in Killeen, Texas. Hobby was the first director of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (WAAC) (later WAC), initially with the rank of major, but was quickly promoted to colonel. She dropped the word “Auxiliary” from the name of the service and worked to give the WAC status equal to that of the all-male army. By the end of the war in 1945 there were 100,000 WACs on active duty in noncombat posts.