President Nixon announced Colonels Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth Hoisington as the first women selected for promotion to Army general.
On May 15, 1970, President Richard Nixon announced the selection of Colonels Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington for promotion to brigadier general, marking the first time in United States military history that women were nominated to become general officers.
This announcement came at a pivotal moment in American history, as the country grappled with the Vietnam War and shifting attitudes toward women's roles in society and the workplace. The nomination of two women for one of the military's highest ranks signaled a significant, if overdue, acknowledgment of women's capacity for senior leadership within the armed forces, an institution that had long been dominated exclusively by men at its top ranks.
Hays, chief of the Army Nurse Corps, and Hoisington, Director of the Women's Army Corps, were selected based on decades of demonstrated leadership and service, including Hoisington's own distinguished record dating back to World War II. Their nomination was widely reported in the press and represented a watershed moment that would be formalized weeks later with their actual promotion ceremony. The announcement itself stands as a historic milestone, opening the door for future generations of women to rise to the Army's highest command positions.