Audrey Hodges started her automotive design career in 1944 at Studebaker after graduating from University of Michigan and working briefly at Willow Run in lofting. She left Studebaker in 1946, and was hired at Tucker Corporation in 1947 working as head of interior design until the company shut down in 1948. She worked the remainder of her career in sales. In her oral history, Hodges discusses her early education in design, particularly being one of the few women in industrial design coursework. She then speaks of her time at Studebaker as the first female designer hired by the company. She discusses working with Virgil Exner and the volatile nature of design under Raymond Loewy. After she left Studebaker, she discusses the difficulty as a woman of finding another job in auto design as many design departments were not ready for women designers. In 1947, she contacted Alex Tremulis at Tucker Corporation and after showing him her portfolio, was hired as head of interiors. She discusses in great detail the organization and workflow at Tucker and her fellow designers, as well as the difficulties working at Tucker including the government investigation of the company, vendors charging the startup higher prices, and difficulties procuring materials. Hodges discusses the closing of Tucker and her move into sales for Formfit and Bienjolie. She wraps up her interview discussing her experiences of being one of the first female auto designers in the industry.

Collection contains 2 cassettes, 2 WAV files, 2 MP3 files, 1 diskette, 2 loose transcripts, 1 bound transcript, 1 Word transcript, and 1 PDF transcript. Uploaded July 26, 2021.

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Keyword: Hodges, Audrey Moore in Digital Collections