Hobby, Oveta Culp, 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

orig. Oveta Culp

(born Jan. 19, 1905, Killeen, Texas, U.S.—died Aug. 16, 1995, Houston, Texas) U.S. publisher and government official. A graduate of the University of Texas Law School, she was parliamentarian of the Texas legislature from 1925 to 1931. In 1931 she married William P. Hobby, publisher of the Houston Post-Dispatch, and went to work for the newspaper, becoming its executive vice president in 1938. From 1942 to 1945 she headed the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps (later Women's Army Corps). In 1953 she was appointed director of the Federal Security Agency, which was reorganized as the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; as secretary of the department (1953–55), she was only the second woman to hold a U.S. cabinet position. She became chairman of the board of the Post in 1965.

Hobby, Oveta Culp (1905– ) public official; born in Killeen, Texas. A lawyer and journalist, she took charge of the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps in October 1942. Some 100,000 women served under her leadership as clerks, cooks, and chauffeurs. A postwar publisher of The Houston Post, she was active in Texas Republican politics and became the first secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (1953–55).