On this day in Alabama history: Julia Smith Oliver was born
Julia Smith Oliver was the first woman to serve in a major cabinet position in Alabama. She became commissioner of the Department of Pensions and Securities (now the Alabama Department of Human Resources) in 1974 and would lead the agency for four years. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama, photo courtesy of John Fair)
Aug. 11, 1926
Julia Oliver was a social worker and head administrator of what now is the Alabama Department of Human Resources. She was born on this day in 1926, and after starting her career as a teacher became a county case worker for the Department of Pensions and Security in 1954 and eventually was named one of the four assistant directors in the department in Montgomery. She earned recognition at the state and national level as a social worker and commissioner of the Alabama Department of Pensions and Security (now the Alabama Department of Human Resources). Oliver made history as the first woman in Alabama to fill a major state cabinet position.
Read more at the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.
