Oveta Culp Hobby

Early life

Culp was born on January 19, 1905, in Killeen, Texas to Isaac William Culp and Emma Elizabeth Hoover. An autodidact, she briefly attended Mary Hardin Baylor College for Women, and attended law classes at South Texas College of Law and Commerce. She did not graduate from either school. She went on to study law at the University of Texas Law School, but she did not formally enroll and therefore never received a degree. Starting at age 21, for several years she served as parliamentarian of the Texas House of Representatives.

War service

During World War II she headed the War Department's Women's Interest Section for a short time and then became the Director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women's Army Corps), which was created to fill gaps left by a shortage of men. The members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to wear U.S. Army uniforms. Hobby achieved the rank of colonel and received the Distinguished Service Medal for efforts during the war. She was the first woman in the Army to receive this award.

Political career

President Dwight D. Eisenhower named her head of the Federal Security Agency, a non-cabinet post, and she was invited to sit in on cabinet meetings. Soon, on April 11, 1953, she became the first secretary, and first female secretary, of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which later became the Department of Health and Human Services. This was her second time organizing a new government agency. Among other decisions and actions at HEW, she made the decision to approve Jonas Salk's polio vaccine.

Culp attempted to restructure Social Security payroll taxes (FICA and SECA), and was met with strong opposition. She resigned her post in 1955. At the time of her resignation she was embroiled in controversies related to the polio vaccine Cutter Incident. Back in Houston, Hobby resumed her position with the Houston Post as president and editor and cared for her ailing husband. She went on to serve on many boards and advisory positions with various civic and business institutions around the country. Seventeen colleges and universities, including Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, awarded her honorary doctoral degrees. She was the first woman who was considered for a United States presidential candidacy by an incumbent United States President; Eisenhower encouraged her to run for president in 1960, but she did not run.

Personal life and family

In 1930, she began working at the Houston Post newspaper which launched her journalistic career. In 1931, she married William P. Hobby, the former Governor of Texas who was the publisher of the Houston Post, and took a position as research editor at the Post. They had two children together. In ensuing years she became the newspaper's executive vice president, then its president, ultimately becoming its publisher. In 1938, she became the vice president of the newspaper and gave greater prominence to women's news.

She died of a stroke in 1995, in Houston, and was buried at Glenwood Cemetery.

Her son William P. Hobby, Jr., served as Lieutenant Governor of Texas from 1973 to 1991. Her daughter Jessica was married to Henry E. Catto, Jr., the former United States Ambassador to Great Britain and was an activist for environmental causes and for the Democratic Party. Hobby’s grandson Paul Hobby narrowly lost the election for comptroller of Texas to Carole Strayhorn in the 1998 general election.

Legacy