Oveta’s Legacy
Oveta Culp Hobby in her living room in Houston, Texas. Courtesy Getty Images.
In his book The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills describes sociology as “the intersection of history and biography.”1 Viewed from this perspective, Oveta herself is clearly a sociological phenomenon. She found herself the director of two major governmental entities during the middle of the twentieth century in America: the Women’s Army Corps and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Although she did not self-identify as a feminist, and indeed her son, Bill Hobby Jr., made it a point to say that she neither considered nor called herself a feminist, I think it is accurate to say that Oveta embodied and represented the feminist ideal: the equal treatment of both sexes in all areas of life, both personal and political.
Oveta is an unsung heroine of the women’s movement. When she began her career as the director of the Women’s Army Corps in 1942, the Army had identified fifty-four jobs that were considered appropriate for women to perform. By the time Oveta retired out of the Corps three years later, Army women were allowed to serve in 239 different job capacities—a 400 percent increase!2 When these former women soldiers returned to civilian life from their war duties, many were not content to only take on or return to the mantle of housewife. Because they were successful in their Army careers, they wanted to continue on in the workforce, either in the same or similar capacities, or in other jobs altogether. After participating in the war effort, whether as typists, telegraph operators, cooks, aircraft spotters, or in other roles, the women wanted to be able to continue working outside the home.
While serving as the secretary of the Health, Education, and Welfare Department, Oveta attempted to have Congress pass the National Health Reinsurance Program, which in essence would have been a national health care law that provided low-cost hospitalization insurance for many Americans who lacked insurance coverage. Before proposing the bill to Congress, she called the great insurance companies of the U.S., told them what she wanted to do, and asked for their guidance because she wanted to make sure the bill was drawn up correctly. The insurance companies sent her their best actuaries to help design the bill correctly from an actuarial viewpoint. This meant correctly calculating the expected life spans and illness probabilities for both men and women, and figuring out the health care costs associated with these statistics.
When it was time for the bill to come up for a vote, President Eisenhower invited these same insurance companies to send representatives to Washington to help answer congressional questions. Prior to the hearings on the bill, the president invited them over to the White House for lunch. During the course of lunch, Oveta explained the whole purpose of the program to them. After they left, they got together again and passed a resolution to support the bill. But Oveta was unable to get the American Medical Association to support the measure, and it was killed in Congress.3
On the question of whether or not she ever felt discriminated against in her jobs because she was a woman, she said, “You know, I never really found in any job I ever had anything to do with that it [being a woman] made any difference. If you’re dealing with ideas and facts, it doesn’t make any difference whether they come from a man or a woman. Now that isn’t to say that some people may not have an emotional reaction. I know that’s true. But I have never found this to be a handicap or a help. And I think you don’t with reasonable people.”4
Oveta may never have felt sex discrimination as a woman, but it was clear from reading media accounts that not only was her sex seen as an issue, but the press took many liberties in describing her. As was the custom of the time, newspapers often commented on what she was wearing, the way her hair was fixed or colored, and asked her questions related to how her husband felt about her working. We can say this is “differential treatment,” because the press did not make the same types of comments about the men around her who were serving in similar capacities. From the media’s perspective, she was viewed as something of an “oddity,” or an “outlier,” which added to her mystique.
Oveta also had certain personal rules pertaining to how she presented herself to the media. For instance, while serving both in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps (later in the Women’s Army Corps), she had a policy of making sure she was never smiling when she was photographed. She did not want people to think that she was having fun while serving in that responsible position.
She was a staunch supporter of equal rights, not only between men and women, but also among people of all colors. She insisted that African American troops in the Women’s Army Corps were led by African American officers, and that the officers and troops received the same training as the Caucasian troops. When it was time to integrate the Houston schools and stop the practice of different schools for black and white students, Oveta made sure she was ready with editorials in her newspaper supporting these efforts. She gave Houston religious leaders a platform in the Post to express their support of integration. She understood the principles of “all people being created equal” described in the U.S. Constitution, and she did her best to ensure that the principle was carried out, in every area over which she had some influence.
At the end of the day, Oveta Culp Hobby personified the best qualities of being a human being—caring for herself, her family, her community, and her country. In the words of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who came after she had performed much of her community service, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Our country asked much of Oveta Culp Hobby, and she met the challenge with the full force of her intellect, her vision, and her spirit. May her story serve as an inspiration to us all.