The USPS delivered a history lesson the other day. Actually
they delivered a 2012 pocket date book, a gift from a long time
business associate. However, on the envelope doing the
delivering was an $.84 Oveta Culp Hobby stamp. Not having
collected stamps since I was about eleven, the fact that there
even was an $.84 stamp eluded me. But, the larger questions -
who is this Oveta Culp Hobby person, why is she a
"stateswoman", and what is with that hat?
Curiosity aroused, Wikipedia was consulted:
"During World War II she headed the War Department's Women's Interest Section for a short time and then became the Director of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps (later the Women's Army Corps), which was created to fill gaps left by a shortage of men. The members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to be in Army uniform. Hobby achieved the rank of colonel and received the Distinguished Service Medal for efforts during the war. She was the first woman in the Army to receive this award."
and
"President Dwight D. Eisenhower named her head of the Federal Security Agency, a non-cabinet post, and she was invited to sit in on cabinet meetings. Soon, on April 11, 1953, she became the first secretary, and first female secretary, of the new Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, which later became the Department of Health and Human Services. This was her second time organizing a new government agency. Among other decisions and actions at HEW, she made the decision to approve Jonas Salk's polio vaccine."
I'd say she deserves the stamp, if only for that decision.
The Wiki employed the word "autodidact" in describing Hobby.
I am not embarrassed to report that Webster's was also
consulted: Autodidact {n. a person who is self educated}.
Oh, and about the hat:
"The stamp art, by illustrator and painter Sterling Hundley of Richmond, Virginia, is based on an undated black-and-white photograph of Hobby in her WAC uniform, with its legendary service cap, the 'Hobby hat.'"
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Great piece with several touch points for me. I have pictures of my grandmother, Zella Gee, in that hat. She joined up during WWII and was in a cryptography unit in New Guinea who broke the Japanese Naval Code.
ReplyDeleteNot many of us got the Salk vaccine. I remember standing in line with my father and us both getting it. It was a "shot". I think it was the next year that the Sabin vaccine came along; pink stuff on a sugar cube.