Career
Rother fled from Nazi-occupied France together with her seven-year-old daughter Ina, to a refugee camp in northern Africa where they stayed for four months before finding passage on a ship bound for New York City in 1941. Her first employment in New York was as an illustrator for Marvel Comics. The following year, she joined the interior styling staff of General Motors in Detroit, Michigan. She was responsible for upholstery colors and fabrics, lighting, door hardware and seat construction.
Although she was Detroit's first woman automotive designer, it was downplayed at the time and her salary as reported in a newspaper was US$600 a month. At this time the average wage was $200 for a man. "She was one of the few women to succeed in a man's job during an era when the vast majority of women couldn't even see a glass ceiling-it was hidden behind steel doors."
In 1947, Rother established her own design studio in the Fisher Building, where she specialized in designs for automotive interiors, furniture, and stained glass windows. Her business was named Helene Rother Associates. In 1948 she published a technical paper with the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) asking "Are we doing a good job in our car interiors" She participated in SAE conferences describing that much can be and should be done in improving automobile interior design and the materials used at that time, summarizing what determines quality in textiles "You get exactly what you pay for."
In 1949, The SAE Journal reported on Rother's work and her activities advocating women in the industry. They described her "efforts have encompassed items ranging from jewelry and accessories to several of today's automobiles, and quoted her that "even the Army is ahead of industry in employing the talents of women."
Read more about this topic: Helene Rother
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