Helene Rother was one of the first women to work as an automotive designer, and achieved an impressive resume of companies she'd go on to work with

Born in Leipzig, Germany in 1908, Helene Rother was in Paris at the outbreak of World War II, having made a name for herself in a career within the Paris high fashion market, designing fine jewelry, watches, and hat pins... she made her way out of France just as the Nazis begin their invasion.

She boarded the first outbound ship she was able to get a ticket on and found herself in Casablanca with her seven-year-old daughter, Ina, in tow.

Finally, she ended up in New York in 1941, safely away from the war in Europe and North Africa.

Here she put her artistic skills once more to good use, landing a job as an illustrator for Timely Publications (later, and certainly better known, as Marvel) drawing an early Marvel character by the name of “Jimmy Jupiter”.

Purely coincidence that yesterday I learned that Stan Lee started working there in 1939 as a gofer.

In 1942, she spotted an advertisement General Motors had placed in The New York Times for an interior designer.

It's quite astonishing that she went from drawing comics, to working at GM as an automotive designers, if you can imagine doing that... and going to interview with GM. That's a big leap!

She applied for, and got, the GM job working for Harley Earl. With her daughter in tow, she moved to Detroit, found an apartment, and began designing interior trim for GM cars.

It was reported by The Detroit News that she was collecting an unheard-of $600 per month (roughly $8,500 in today’s money). GM was quick to downplay the report due to the progressive idea of having a woman not only working in a male-centric field, but also making more than the average man at the same job ($200). After four years with the company, she had stockpiled enough capital and name recognition to step out and start a business.

In 1947 she opened her own studio in the Fisher building on the 16th floor, and formed a successful partnership with Nash Motors, where she specialized in designs for automotive interiors, furniture, mosaics and stained glass windows.

Even the economical Nash Rambler models were prominently promoted as "irresistible glamour" on wheels. The innovative 100-inch wheelbase Rambler was conceived initially as a well-appointed convertible with its interior designed with the aid of Rother as a consultant.  https://www.chuckstoyland.com/category/automotive/nash-rambler/nash/nash-1951/1951-nash-the-new-nash-airflytes-sales-catalog/

Nash used a strategy to focus on design and quality features helped establish a new segment in the automobile market, as the Rambler is widely acknowledged to be the first successful modern American compact car.

Many Nash sales brochures and Rambler advertisements of the time featured the copy stating: "Styling by Pinin Farina and interiors by Madame Helene Rother of Paris" as proof of the European influence on company's automobile styling. She conferred with Pinin Farina, who styled the exterior of the 1953 Nash Airflytes, to coordinate with the interiors and new custom fabrics. In 1954, the Nash Ambassadors had a big feature: the completely new interior by Rother.

After Nash, she purchased a home on Chicago Boulevard in Detroit, with living quarters upstairs and a studio downstairs, where she continued other independent consulting work for or with a number of automotive-related companies including Miller-Meteor, a company known for its ambulances and hearses, Goodyear, B.F. Goodrich, U.S. Rubber, Stromberg-Carlson, and International Harvester.

Her client list included non-automotive firms too, like Magnavox and Elgin American. She also designed a sterling flatware pattern called "Skylark" for Samuel Kirk and Son, silver craftsmen firm since 1815, that the company issued from 1954 into the late-1980s.

Later, she designed stained glass windows for churches throughout the country, a remarkable career move she would continue the rest of her life, along with raising horses on her ranch in Metamora Michigan

The designed stained glass she made for American churches in the mid-1960s were mainly in Michigan, such as the Beverly Hills United Methodist Church in Beverly Hills Michigan, and the St. Lazarus Serbian Orthodox Cathedral in northeast Detroit

Yes, from Parisian jeweler, to Marvel comic artist, to Nash interiors, to stained glass. I emphasis this to increase the focus for a moment on how amazing a person's life can be, and how varied the careers in just one life can be. Ask your grandparents, if you can, to write their biographies, I believe you'll find your family members lives to be astonishing when looked at in total. 

All of that ought to be enough to cause you to have little surprise that there is now an award in automotive design, in her name, and will be an event in Las Vegas in Oct 2019.

The Helene Awards Banquet and Ceremony will honor 12 deserving innovators throughout the automotive industry for outstanding achievements is the design, development and future of the automobile.

https://56packardman.com/2018/04/10/gear-head-tuesday-automotive-designer-helene-rother/
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/stan-lee-dead-marvel-comics-real-life-superhero-was-95-721450
https://www.hemmings.com/magazine/hcc/2005/07/Helene-Rother/1280817.html
https://alchetron.com/Helene-Rother
https://www.lasvegasconcours.com/the-helene-awards-banquet-1/
https://timeline.com/helene-rother-64363eb9f8aa

ps, I didn't know that Dean's Garage lifted stories from other sites
http://www.deansgarage.com/2018/damsels-of-design/  is a complete copy of https://www.core77.com/posts/49498/The-Story-Behind-GMs-Celebrated-

Manning de Villeneuve Lee was a wonderful painting illustrator and comic book artist

https://americangallery20th.wordpress.com/2015/03/06/manning-de-villeneuve-lee-1894-1980/

The Beagle Boys Versus Uncle Scrooge

Russ Manning Magnus Robot Fighter

http://www.artnet.com/artists/manning-de-villeneuve-lee/

The Quality Companion: Celebrating the forgotten publisher of Plastic Man ... By Mike Kooiman, Jim Amash

His father was a a general in charge of the Virginia Calvary in the Spanish American War, later becoming a newspaper and magazine owner, who in 1903 started his first magazine, The Railroad and Industrial World.

The WW1 attitude against the Germans made many, including the Stoppelbein family, to change their name to something else, and so, the last name was changed to Lee. Villeneuve was his maternal grandmother's last name.

During WW1, Manning de Villeneuve Lee enlisted on July 5, 1916 and served in field artillery at Fort Myer.  Then he served in Mexico during the border war. After that conflict he was released and served overseas as a lieutenant. He was honorably discharged on April 14, 1919.

In 1922 Manning de V. Lee completed his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. One of his fellow graduates was Henry Weston Taylor (1881-1978), who went on to a successful career as a newspaper cartoonist. Lee and Taylor shared an art studio in Philadelphia

In 1943 Manning de V. Lee taught illustration at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. That fact that he was hired to teach a course in illustration at America's most conservative art academy, reflected his remarkable personality.

https://www.pulpartists.com/Lee,MdeV.html

all three were by Rupert Holland, who also wrote Pirate Ships In Yankee Waters, which I coincidentally happened to have a copy of

because Deadpool is hilarious, and I'd rather watch his antics than her nonsense

they even used comic books to get the message about about gasoline additives!

https://www.garagejournal.com/forum/showpost.php?p=6768530&postcount=975

From the Art of Clare Victor “Dwig” Dwiggins

http://hazelhomeartandantiques.blogspot.com/2015/09/from-comics-journal-art-of-dwig-dwiggins.html

Canada's answer to the American cartoonist Bill Mauldin, Sergeant William Garnet "Bing" Coughlin, who created the character "Herbie", the quintessential Canadian infantry man.

He originally served with the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards, participating in the invasion of Sicily and then 4 months in the Italian campaign before being assigned to The Maple Leaf staff. 

http://progress-is-fine.blogspot.com/2017/07/herbie-at-war-cartoons-of-bing-coughlin.html

Miss Lace, a character from a comic strip by the artist who made Terry and the Pirates, was graciously conferred by the artist to a Lt who requested its use for his B 17

he was also famous for Steve Canyon.

In his support for the forces Caniff produced a comic strip dedicated to and centering on the forces during the war, it was initially a special version of ‘Terry and the Pirates’, concentrating on the character ‘Burma’ and only published in military newspapers. However after complaints were made about its inaccessibility to the general public it was re named ‘Male Call’ and the main character called ‘Miss Lace’.

The strip was produced until 7 months after V-J day and ‘Miss Lace’ became the inspiration for B-17 nose art ‘Bit o Lace’ after Caniff received a request from Lt John Bauman to use the character ‘Miss Lace’. Caniff responded in the affirmative and sent a sketch back entitled ‘Bit o Lace’ with the message “A bit of lace for Lt John Bauman and the gang, with my very best wishes”

https://artonthenose.com/2015/03/09/miss-lace-becomes-bit-o-lace/

VMF 221 group 18

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10219427052565858&set=p.10219427052565858&type=3&permPage=1

http://popcultureaddict.com/malecall/  thanks Steve!

A B-24M in the 374th Squadron of the 308th Bombardment Group (China)

 Although most people never had the chance to see Caniff’s legendary, although rarest, comic strip Male Call, and it's featured femme extraordinaire Miss Lace, you can now buy Caniff’s unique contribution to the war effort, combining sex and humor, in its entirety on Amazon.

I just got mine, and they were the only in stock of their published examples, but there are a hell of a lot of others, https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=male+call+caniff

 
 Caniff became popular overseas and on the home front for his painstakingly accurate research and attention to detail in Terry and the Pirates, which has gone into history as one of the most important comic strips of the era.

 However, the comic strip was a continuing daily strip, and with many GI’s often being away from newspapers for long periods of time due to being in battle, the continuity of the strip often became lost, making Terry virtually unreadable to the men that it celebrated.

 As a service to the US armed forces, Caniff developed a second “gag a day” Terry and the Pirates strip that he would draw and submit to overseas military camp newspapers completely separate from the on-going Terry comic strip. Popular for his smart and sexy heroines, Caniff chose his popular character Burma, a con-artist turned singer, as his central character. In each strip Burma would be put in a fun and often sexy situation involving her interactions with American GIs.

 However, when the editor of the Miami Herald learned that a second version of the strip was being given away to overseas papers for free, he complained to the Tribune that he was being “cheated.” Always takes one jerk to wreck everything. Caniff was forced to end his daily Terry strip with Burma in just less than four months.

Between a Rock and a Hard Place, coming along fantastically, (I posted about it a couple years ago) enjoy!

Still waiting for Hullabaloo, it's supposed to be nearly 4 episodes completed already, as it reached 588% of it's Indiegogo goal. in the spring of 2017 I've read, will be the release (finally) I last posted about it in the fall of 2014 http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2014/09/a-terrific-new-video-to-help-kickstart.html  if you don't remember what I'm talking about

Dr Suess in advertising (in the 20s and 30s he worked for Standard Oil)

Smiling, toothy creatures such as Zero-doccus, Karbo-nockus, Moto-raspus and Oilio-Gobelus appeared in advertisements that warned motorists of the hazards of driving without the protection of Standard Oil lubrication.

“Meet the Zero-doccus. He is the first if a group of terrible beasts that are being turned loose in the advertising of Essolube, Standard Oil Company (New Jersey) products,” reports the December 8, 1932, Printers’ Insider, an advertising trade journal.

 

http://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/when-the-wild-imagination-of-dr-seuss-fueled-big-oil/
http://aoghs.org/editors-picks/seuss-the-oilman/

http://www.drivedivedevour.com/boat-museum/

http://www.philnel.com/2010/08/21/corporate-seuss/