Seal of the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare

The United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (also known as HEW) was a cabinet-level department of the United States government from 1953 until 1979. It was administered by the United States Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1979, a separate Department of Education (ED) was created from this department, and HEW was renamed as the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

History

President Harding proposed a Department of Education and Welfare as early as 1923, and similar proposals were also recommended by subsequent presidents, but for various reasons was not implemented.^[1]. It as only enacted as part of the Reorganization Plan Number 1 of 1953, transmitted to Congress by Dwight D. Eisenhower on March 12, 1953.

To date, this was the only department of the U.S. government to be created through presidential reorganization authority, in which the president is allowed to create or reorganize bureaucracies as long as neither house of Congress passed a legislative veto. This power to create new departments was removed after 1962, but in the early 1980s the Supreme Court declared legislative vetoes unconstitutional.

List of secretaries

Secretaries of Health, Education, and Welfare

No.	Name	Year appointed	President(s) served under
1	Oveta Culp Hobby	1953–1955	Dwight D. Eisenhower
2	Marion Bayard Folsom	1955–1958	Dwight D. Eisenhower
3	Arthur Sherwood Flemming	1958–1961	Dwight D. Eisenhower
4	Abraham A. Ribicoff	1961–1962	John F. Kennedy
5	Anthony J. Celebrezze	1962–1965	John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson
6	John William Gardner	1965–1968	Lyndon Johnson
7	Wilbur J. Cohen	1968–1969	Lyndon Johnson
8	Robert H. Finch	1969–1970	Richard Nixon
9	Elliot Lee Richardson	1970–1973	Richard Nixon
10	Caspar Weinberger	1973–1975	Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford
11	Forrest David Mathews	1975–1977	Gerald Ford
12	Joseph A. Califano, Jr.	1977–1979	Jimmy Carter
13	Patricia Roberts Harris	1979–1979	Jimmy Carter

References

de:Gesundheits-, Bildungs- und Wohlfahrtsministerium der Vereinigten Staaten simple:United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare sv:USA:s hälso-, utbildnings- och välfärdsdepartement