Oveta Culp Hobby’s Birthday

Happy Birthday to the OG WAAC, born this day in 1905.

Oveta Culp Hobby was born in Killeen, Texas. An avid student, she became legislative parliamentarian of the Texas House of Representatives at age 20. In 1931, she transitioned out of state politics and into a career in newspaper publishing, becoming Executive Vice President of the Houston Post in 1938.

In summer 1941, she was “virtually drafted” into organizing and serving as the Chief of the War Department’s Women’s Interest Section.^[1] This was intended to serve as a liaison between the WD and various women’s service groups nationwide, to help assuage American women’s concerns about their servicemen. The WIS focused on predominately white women’s organizations at first, prompting Mary McLeod Bethune to (successfully) advocate for the inclusion of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), starting a working relationship between Hobby and Bethune that would last through World War II. 

Though the WIS was not created with the intent to help pass WAAC legislation, it was Hobby’s participation in it that directly led to her involvement in the planning of the WAAC. In fact, when Congresswomen Rogers was asked for her recommendations for Director of the future Corps, the only name she submitted was Hobby’s.^[2]

Instrumental in the WAAC planning stages during the early months of 1942, Oveta Culp Hobby was officially sworn in as WAAC Director on 16 May 1942, two days after the bill passed Congress and the day after FDR signed it into law. As the first member of the Corps (and until July 1942, the only member) her Army Serial Number (ASN) was L-1. 

We’ll discuss more of the minutiae of Hobby’s involvement during the planning in the upcoming months, so stay tuned!

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^[1] Mattie E. Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps (Off. of the Chief of Military History, Dep. of the Army, 1954), 21. 

^[2] Treadwell, The Women’s Army Corps, 28-29.