Oveta Culp Hobby Papers and Photographs

Oveta Culp Hobby (1905 - 1995) was the first secretary of the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, first commanding officer of the Women's Army Corps during World War II, and chairperson of the board of the Houston Post. In 1931, she married William P. Hobby, a former Governor of Texas and the publisher of the Houston Post. She later became the Post's executive vice president, president, and then its publisher. In 1946–47, Mrs. Hobby served on boards of the Advertising Federation of America, the American Design Award Committee, the American National Red Cross, the American Cancer Society, the American Society of Newspaper Editors, the Citizens Committee for the Hoover Report, and the American Assembly. In 1948 she was a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Conference on Freedom of Information and the Press in Geneva, Switzerland. She was invited to fly around the world on a special circumnavigation flight of Pan American World Airways. In April 11, 1953, she became the first secretary of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1955 Mrs. Hobby resumed her position with the Houston Post as president and editor. In 1956 she became chairman of the board of directors of the newly organized Bank of Texas and the first woman in its 113-year history to be a member of Mutual of New York's board of trustees. President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed her to the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service and she flew to Vietnam as a member of the HEW Vietnam Health Education Task Force in 1966. In 1968 she was named to the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and supervised the construction of the Houston Post's new building on the Southwest Freeway at Post Oak Road. Her son William P. Hobby, Jr., served as Lieutenant Governor of Texas from 1973 - 1991. Oveta Culp Hobby died on August 16, 1995, in Houston, and is buried at Glenwood Cemetery.