Debra Winegarten
Excerpt of Phone Interview Transcript - February 3, 2015
Author of Oveta Culp Hobby: Colonel, Cabinet Member, and Philanthropist
Excerpt of Phone Interview Transcript - February 3, 2015
Author of Oveta Culp Hobby: Colonel, Cabinet Member, and Philanthropist
1.)What did you think Mrs. Hobby’s most influential legacy was?
"I think her most influential legacy was all the doors that she opened for women. When she was the director of the Women’s Army Corp, when she first started they had about fifty-something I think 54 jobs they thought women could do but when she retired out 2 years later, they had identified over 200 jobs that women could do in the army and up till then people didn’t think that women could do those kinds of jobs. So the women did in fact do those jobs and then when they got out of the army and people said “Oh now you need to go back home and be a wife and get married and raise kids.” The women were like “wait a minute. We had these amazing jobs and we want to continue to contribute to the work force and contribute to our country.” So I think that was one of her lasting legacies is that she opened doors to jobs for women that people didn’t think they could do."
2.)What sparked your interest to write about Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby?
"I wanted to write about her because I like to write biographies of Texas women for middle school students. And you may know that in the social studies curriculum, they list key individuals that students should know about. When I was doing my research 8 years ago, I was looking at those curriculum guidelines at the time. They listed only 3 women. They listed 17 men and 3 women. The 3 women were Barbara Jordan and Cynthia Ann Parker and Oveta Culp Hobby. So then I went and did research and I saw that there were many, many books already on Barbara Jordan and I saw that there were many books on Cynthia Ann Parker. But there were no books on Oveta Culp Hobby. And then I thought well that’s interesting. And then I did some more research. I thought how many middle schools are there in Texas because I knew that if students needed to know about her and there was no book about her that those middle schools hopefully their libraries would buy the book. It turned there were 1400 in Texas and that’s a lot. So when I wrote my research proposal to the UT Press to give me a contract for the book that’s one of the key points I put in there. I was like this is an extraordinary woman she ought to have a book about her and no one’s done one before and I started looking into doing a book about her."
3.)How was Mrs. Hobby a leader in your own words?
"I think at the time that she was in the public eye whether she was being a newspaper publisher or the director of the women’s army corps or the secretary of the Department of Health Education and welfare. No matter which of those roles she was doing at the time, she understood that she was a role model and that people were really scrutinizing her and they were really looking at her under a microscope and she realized not only that she had to present herself well as an individual but also she realized she was representing women and people were judging all American women by her. Most like the same way that today, people will look at Hillary Clinton or they’ll look at Sarah Palin or some other high profile women and they say that person is a representative of all women…the same way they do with our president. They say look Barack Obama. He’s a black man. He must be like all black men. Of course we know that is not true but she was very aware that she was looked at under a microscope. Her hair had to be a certain way. She had to dress a certain way. When she was the director of the Women’s Army Corps she made sure that no one took a picture of her smiling because she didn’t want people to think she was having fun and that because she knew that the media and people would make fun of her and they would for ways to criticize her. So I think that I was very impressed with her ability to … to represent, not only herself but herself in which ever role she was playing at the time to show that women can do things, extraordinary things that…if they were just given a chance. So I think that makes her an incredible leader."
4.)When you heard about Mrs. Hobby, did it influence your career choice?
"No. No it didn’t. I am an author so I decided to write a book about her. It didn’t change what I’m doing. I’m still an author and a public speaker. I like to go around and tell her story. I would say that it enhanced my career choice because it gave me another book to sell and it gave me another person to talk to about…another person’s story to share. The thing about being an author in particular when you write biographies you write stories of people who actually existed and when they are no longer alive as she is no longer with us. Then you kind of become a person’s storyteller or another way to say that is that you become the keeper of their story. And so it’s a big responsibility when you write a book like this you want to present the person well. We are all human so we have our good side and we have our bad side. So the challenge as a biographer is always to tell good things about the person but you can’t tell so many good things that people go “Oh my god she couldn’t possibly been that amazing” I mean as you read the book I think you saw she was really amazing and there wasn’t a lot of mistakes that she made…beyond the polio epidemic…when the vaccine failed…I think that was one of the biggest things that disturbed her. So that’s my answer."
5.)How would you describe Mrs. Hobby in your own words?
"I would describe her as a woman who was probably one of the smartest people anyone ever met and not only was she smart in terms of…she was well read. She understood things. She was really smart in her ability to manage getting things done and she …I think she was good with people and the other thing I think she was really good at was learning. She recognized when she didn’t know about something and figured out a way to go and find about it. When she didn’t know how to dress very well, she found her sister and her sister helped her find out about that so she went from being very plain dressed to being on the list of being one of the ten best dressed women in the United States. There wasn’t a Women’s Army Corp when they asked her to design one so she had travel around the world and see what other people were doing and come up with a plan and then when they said “Hey, would you come run this thing?” Well she’d never run an organization like this before but she said sure and then she just when in and figured out how to do it. When she was appointed the head of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, that department didn’t exist. She had to bring it into creation. She was a woman who had a wonderful ability to take an idea and turn it into reality. That’s a fabulous skill to have. There’s a lot of people who are what we call visionaries. They have a lot of million great ideas but they never make anything happen. And then there are other people who can make things happen but they just follow the way things have already been done and they don’t think of a new way. She had this marvelous ability to take an idea and to be able to translate it into practical action and that skill is marvelous. And because she was able to do that she was very successful in almost everything she attempted. One of the things I most admire about her is when someone issued her a challenge: Can you do this? Even if she didn’t know how to do it, she was like “I’ll do it!” Then she just stepped up and figured out how to do it. I’m kind of like that too. When someone says “Can you write a book about this thing?” Well I might not know that thing. I’ll go and research. I didn’t really know much about Mrs. Hobby before I started the book but I did a lot of research. I interviewed her family members. I went over; I think you guys have been over to her archives at Rice University. I did 3 different research trips. I live in Austin. But I went and spent 3 weeks over the course of 2 or 3 years going through all of her papers, reading them and looking at her pictures and it took me 8 years to write that book and it’s not something you can hammer out overnight. So I would say those things about her."
"I think her most influential legacy was all the doors that she opened for women. When she was the director of the Women’s Army Corp, when she first started they had about fifty-something I think 54 jobs they thought women could do but when she retired out 2 years later, they had identified over 200 jobs that women could do in the army and up till then people didn’t think that women could do those kinds of jobs. So the women did in fact do those jobs and then when they got out of the army and people said “Oh now you need to go back home and be a wife and get married and raise kids.” The women were like “wait a minute. We had these amazing jobs and we want to continue to contribute to the work force and contribute to our country.” So I think that was one of her lasting legacies is that she opened doors to jobs for women that people didn’t think they could do."
2.)What sparked your interest to write about Mrs. Oveta Culp Hobby?
"I wanted to write about her because I like to write biographies of Texas women for middle school students. And you may know that in the social studies curriculum, they list key individuals that students should know about. When I was doing my research 8 years ago, I was looking at those curriculum guidelines at the time. They listed only 3 women. They listed 17 men and 3 women. The 3 women were Barbara Jordan and Cynthia Ann Parker and Oveta Culp Hobby. So then I went and did research and I saw that there were many, many books already on Barbara Jordan and I saw that there were many books on Cynthia Ann Parker. But there were no books on Oveta Culp Hobby. And then I thought well that’s interesting. And then I did some more research. I thought how many middle schools are there in Texas because I knew that if students needed to know about her and there was no book about her that those middle schools hopefully their libraries would buy the book. It turned there were 1400 in Texas and that’s a lot. So when I wrote my research proposal to the UT Press to give me a contract for the book that’s one of the key points I put in there. I was like this is an extraordinary woman she ought to have a book about her and no one’s done one before and I started looking into doing a book about her."
3.)How was Mrs. Hobby a leader in your own words?
"I think at the time that she was in the public eye whether she was being a newspaper publisher or the director of the women’s army corps or the secretary of the Department of Health Education and welfare. No matter which of those roles she was doing at the time, she understood that she was a role model and that people were really scrutinizing her and they were really looking at her under a microscope and she realized not only that she had to present herself well as an individual but also she realized she was representing women and people were judging all American women by her. Most like the same way that today, people will look at Hillary Clinton or they’ll look at Sarah Palin or some other high profile women and they say that person is a representative of all women…the same way they do with our president. They say look Barack Obama. He’s a black man. He must be like all black men. Of course we know that is not true but she was very aware that she was looked at under a microscope. Her hair had to be a certain way. She had to dress a certain way. When she was the director of the Women’s Army Corps she made sure that no one took a picture of her smiling because she didn’t want people to think she was having fun and that because she knew that the media and people would make fun of her and they would for ways to criticize her. So I think that I was very impressed with her ability to … to represent, not only herself but herself in which ever role she was playing at the time to show that women can do things, extraordinary things that…if they were just given a chance. So I think that makes her an incredible leader."
4.)When you heard about Mrs. Hobby, did it influence your career choice?
"No. No it didn’t. I am an author so I decided to write a book about her. It didn’t change what I’m doing. I’m still an author and a public speaker. I like to go around and tell her story. I would say that it enhanced my career choice because it gave me another book to sell and it gave me another person to talk to about…another person’s story to share. The thing about being an author in particular when you write biographies you write stories of people who actually existed and when they are no longer alive as she is no longer with us. Then you kind of become a person’s storyteller or another way to say that is that you become the keeper of their story. And so it’s a big responsibility when you write a book like this you want to present the person well. We are all human so we have our good side and we have our bad side. So the challenge as a biographer is always to tell good things about the person but you can’t tell so many good things that people go “Oh my god she couldn’t possibly been that amazing” I mean as you read the book I think you saw she was really amazing and there wasn’t a lot of mistakes that she made…beyond the polio epidemic…when the vaccine failed…I think that was one of the biggest things that disturbed her. So that’s my answer."
5.)How would you describe Mrs. Hobby in your own words?
"I would describe her as a woman who was probably one of the smartest people anyone ever met and not only was she smart in terms of…she was well read. She understood things. She was really smart in her ability to manage getting things done and she …I think she was good with people and the other thing I think she was really good at was learning. She recognized when she didn’t know about something and figured out a way to go and find about it. When she didn’t know how to dress very well, she found her sister and her sister helped her find out about that so she went from being very plain dressed to being on the list of being one of the ten best dressed women in the United States. There wasn’t a Women’s Army Corp when they asked her to design one so she had travel around the world and see what other people were doing and come up with a plan and then when they said “Hey, would you come run this thing?” Well she’d never run an organization like this before but she said sure and then she just when in and figured out how to do it. When she was appointed the head of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, that department didn’t exist. She had to bring it into creation. She was a woman who had a wonderful ability to take an idea and turn it into reality. That’s a fabulous skill to have. There’s a lot of people who are what we call visionaries. They have a lot of million great ideas but they never make anything happen. And then there are other people who can make things happen but they just follow the way things have already been done and they don’t think of a new way. She had this marvelous ability to take an idea and to be able to translate it into practical action and that skill is marvelous. And because she was able to do that she was very successful in almost everything she attempted. One of the things I most admire about her is when someone issued her a challenge: Can you do this? Even if she didn’t know how to do it, she was like “I’ll do it!” Then she just stepped up and figured out how to do it. I’m kind of like that too. When someone says “Can you write a book about this thing?” Well I might not know that thing. I’ll go and research. I didn’t really know much about Mrs. Hobby before I started the book but I did a lot of research. I interviewed her family members. I went over; I think you guys have been over to her archives at Rice University. I did 3 different research trips. I live in Austin. But I went and spent 3 weeks over the course of 2 or 3 years going through all of her papers, reading them and looking at her pictures and it took me 8 years to write that book and it’s not something you can hammer out overnight. So I would say those things about her."