Oleta Crain

Oleta Crain
U.S. Government Official
U.S 1913 - 2007
INDUCTED 1988

Oklahoma native Oleta Crain was high school valedictorian and earned two master’s degrees, despite her childhood of poverty and racial segregation.

World War II brought her to Denver, where she joined thousands of women recruited to make bullets at the Denver Ordnance Plant (now the Denver Federal Center). She enlisted in the Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps – one of the first African-American women to serve during World War II. For 35 years, Crain brought her passion for equal rights to the U. S. Department of Labor as Region VIII (Colorado and the Mountain West) Administrator of the Federal Women’s Bureau.

“There are only two jobs open to Negro girls – a maid’s job or working in the lead shop. There is quite a bit of discrimination.” — Oleta Crain, Remington Arms Ordnance Plant, 1942