Helene Rother

Helene Rother
Born	1908 Leipzig, Germany
Died	1999 Michigan
Nationality	United States

Helene Rother (1908–1999) was the first woman to work as an automotive designer when she joined the interior styling staff of General Motors in Detroit in 1943. She specialized in designs for automotive interiors, as well as furniture, jewellery, fashion accessories, and stained glass windows.

A native of Leipzig, Germany, Rother studied art at the Kunstgewerbeschule (a school of applied arts) in Hamburg. It is also claimed that she studied at the Bauhaus, although the details of when remain unclear. No dates are available and some sources say she went to the Weimar Bauhaus (open 1919-1925) and some say Dessau, (open 1926-1932).

Rother moved to Parisand designed of high fashion jewellery, as well as popular little animal pins that women wore on hats and dresses before World War II.

In 1932, Rother gave birth to Ina Ann Rother whose father was active in the French Resistance and on the run for years.

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.

Rother's 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."

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