1940's Government and Politics | Hobby, Oveta Culp 1905-

DRECTOR OF WOMEN'S ARMY CORPS

Administrator.

An unusually energetic and talented woman, Oveta Culp Hobby presided over the formation of America's first female military corps during World War II. The Women's Army Corps (WAC) was to a great extent her invention. She labored against many bureaucratic dismissals of female soldiering and struggled to prevent the WACs from devolving into menial assistants to the male corps. She also held the WACs to high moral standards to offset suggestions that the WACs were glorified camp followers and prostitutes. She forged the WAC into a disciplined unit that earned the respect of male and female commentators.

Prodigy.

Born Oveta Culp on 5 January 1905 in Killeen, Texas, she was a gifted student who followed her father into law. A graduate of the University of Texas Law School, by age twenty she was not only Houston's assistant city attorney but also parliamentarian of the...