Summary: Oveta Culp Hobby portrait, Face-to-Face talk. By her early thirties, Oveta Culp Hobby had helped to codify the banking laws of her native Texas, been an assistant to Houston's city attorney, and served as an editor and executive vice president of the Houston Post. Hobby's already substantial accomplishments only whetted her appetite for other challenges. When this portrait appeared on Time's cover in 1944, she was the commanding officer of the Women's Army Corps, charged with directing one of this country's first experiments in utilizing women in the military. The experiment was succeeding overall, and the performance of Hobby's WACs had long since disputed the initial spate of cynical remarks about a woman's unfitness for the military. But one problem still persisted: much to Hobby's disappointment, the numbers of WAC enlistments had fallen well short of the army's original hopes. Recorded at NPG, October 28, 2010. Image: Oveta Culp Hobby / Ernest Hamlin Baker / Gouache on paper, 1944 / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Oveta Culp Hobby; copyright Ernest Hamlin Baker
