Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯

Alvina Schumacher, a Johnson Creek native who had married Albert Schumacher in Janesville in 1904, pushed back.

She hired a lawyer and ultimately won a settlement that sustained the family through the Great Depression.

Years later, Doris, a 1937 graduate of Janesville High School, recalled her mother’s ferocity.

β€œMy mother was a strong woman, apparently that's where I get it,” Thom said in a recorded interview. β€œI give her an awful lot of credit, for not being the kind that sat back and said β€˜Alright, I’ll take what you give me.’”

According to her obituary published in Ογ½ΆΦ±²₯ when she passed away on Nov. 15, 2017 at the age of 97, and an oral history project in which she shared about her life and career, Doris was just as tough.

She β€œfought for women's rights throughout her long life,” and career that would bring her to Janesville’s General Motors assembly plant, where she’d advocate in the 1960s for the rights of women to work in departments previously reserved for men, and she would rise as a union leader.

But before her time at GM, she would experience a common practice for women of her generation – losing a job for getting pregnant.

Thom joined the workforce in 1940 as a young wife, spending one year at the Parker Pen Company in Janesville, repairing pen nibs, until she was laid off.

She had married her first husband, Henry Paul, in 1938. Their oldest son, Donald, was born in 1941.

Her next job was as a β€œRosie the Riveter" at Gilman Engineering Works in Janesville, where she spent World War II producing emergency landing gear for fighter planes.

She received the United States Army and Navy β€˜E’ (Excellence) Award for this work. Doris was also the first woman to serve on the executive committee for the International Association of Machinists Local 1266, her obituary noted.

β€œThe war was on, the fellas were gone, they needed people to do their work, but they hesitated for a long time” to hire women, Thom said in the oral history recording.

At Gilman Engineering Works, she experienced women being denied advancement when her all-female department briefly began learning to use complex machinery.

Initially, management was thrilled, Thom said, until the women asked for higher pay to go along with the added job responsibilities.

Management then barred women from touching any advanced equipment, or learning any other job.

β€œAfter that particular incident, that’s when I decided to go to a union meeting,” Thom recalled.

She was quickly elected to be the local union’s recording secretary.

But then, Thom was fired by Gillman because she got pregnant again. Her son, Paul, was born in 1945.

β€œIn those years, when you became pregnant you were automatically terminated,” Thom said.

Thom then worked a series of seasonal jobs -- pelting mink, plucking turkeys and inoculating baby chicks. Her daughter, Patricia, was born in 1950.

She returned to the full-time workforce in 1955, at the General Motors' Fisher Body Plant in Janesville, and it was there in the 1960s that she would make her voice and presence most memorably known, as an advocate for herself and other women workers.

At GM, she would challenge denial of her repeated applications to work in non-women departments. She would become a leader with the United Auto Workers, including with its regional women’s committee, and would push other women employees at GM to join her in advocating for greater workplace equality including equal pay for equal work.

Paving her own way, and that of women who came after her, wasn’t an easy fight.

The Democratic activist, mother of three and self-proclaimed feminist advocated for herself at every turn – pushing for better pay, access to rightful accommodations and the general respect for herself and other women workers.

β€œI’ve had to fight for nearly everything that I've ever wanted,” Thom shared in 1990 with journalist and author Jamakaya, when she was one of 27 women interviewed for a Wisconsin women in labor oral history project.

Excerpts from that oral history project are used here with permission from the Wisconsin Historical Society, Wisconsin Labor History Society and author Jamakaya.

Early life

Doris Thom had been born Doris Schumacher on March 8, 1920, in Janesville.

As a child, she was determined to keep up with her brothers and their friends, and learned to love sports like basketball, hockey, tennis, golf and kittenball.

β€œWe were in an area where there were very few little girls,” Thom said. β€œI had to be as tough as the rest of them. When they played ball, I played ball. When they picked up snakes…so did I.”

β€œTo this day, I can’t fix my own hair,” she joked, acknowledging that this β€œwas the least of my worries.”

Before her father died in the railway accident in 1930, she remembered going to railway union potlucks with other families, and said her father’s commitment to his union made a strong impression on her.

Her first job at the Janesville General Motors plant in 1955 was on the cushion line – an all-women department that manufactured and installed cushions in vehicles.

β€œIt was difficult work, and…that made me start opening my eyes and looking around,” for other roles at the plant, Thom said. She recalls recognizing that β€œmost of them look a lot easier than what we were doing.”

Meanwhile, she got involved with the local union.

In 1960, Thom was elected to her first role with United Auto Workers Local 95 in Janesville, in an era when few women attended UAW meetings. She was soon named recording secretary, and then became the first woman ever to serve on the local executive board.

She joined the UAW Region 10 Women’s Committee that represented women workers at General Motors plants across the state of Wisconsin.

Thom would credit that involvement with finally inspiring her to apply for positions outside the cushion line.

She quickly found, however, that supervisors wouldn’t accept her applications for roles she wanted; they were reserved for men.

At a national union convention, she learned about processes to contest gender discrimination.

She filed a grievance with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, which determined she had a case. After meetings with General Motors attorneys and union leaders, the EEOC said General Motors had to allow Thom to apply for any positions she was qualified for.

She put her name in for several jobs, but even with 10 years of experience, she was passed over. It then came to her attention that the foremen were encouraging male workers to apply for all available jobs, so they didn’t have to work with a woman.

β€œI had the law on my side, but I couldn’t get the jobs,” Thom said.

Frustrated, she marched into the plant manager’s office, and demanded he make the foremen stop blocking her applications.

She won a job – her first outside the cushion line – attaching weather stripping to car doors, in a 7-foot-deep recessed area called β€œthe pit.”

She was met with hostility, she said, from both men and women workers.

β€œI had people coming from every direction, looking down (on me), like a monkey in a cage,” Thom said. β€œIt was just awful. Nobody would talk to you.”

Men worried that women would take their jobs, and women worried they’d be fired if they started asking for other roles and higher pay.

β€œThere was this feeling, it was very definite with many of them, (that) β€˜she’s going to wreck our jobs,'” Thom recalled.

Jaclyn Kelly, the executive director of the Wisconsin Labor History Society, said in an interview that Thom’s perseverance and courage was remarkable.

β€œThe feeling of walking into the belly of the beast every day,” Kelly said, was real and challenging.

β€œIt’s hard to be somewhere where you know they don’t want you there. Having to go in there every day” was admirable, Kelly said.

As a former union president and shop floor worker herself, Kelly said she related to the dread.

β€œThat’s part of how these people wear you out. It’s just roadblock after roadblock after roadblock,” Kelly said. β€œFor (Thom) to continue on…she demanded to be off the cushion line, she demanded the same accommodations as everyone else…that’s impressive.”

There were no women's restrooms near Thom’s new workspace. With only 15-minute breaks, she didn’t have time to cross the plant to use the bathroom.

She threatened to use the men’s bathrooms, with the men still in them, if she wasn’t given more time.

Thom remembers those days as miserable.

β€œI went home nights and I cried.” Thom said. β€œI said to myself β€˜I don't have to go down there to work.’ And every day I'd say to myself β€˜Yes you do. You started something and you're going to finish it.’ And that was the biggest accomplishment I think.”

The knowledge that her new roles were less grueling work, with better pay, also helped her get through.

Thom left General Motors in 1969, and while coworkers didn’t honor her accomplishments at the time, she was recognized later in life for paving the way for women at GM.

β€œThe impact of Doris’ courage in the workplace is actually the same impact that other courageous trade women had on her,” Kelly said. The women’s committee, in particular, was β€œa source of friendship and solidarity and camaraderie that helped sustain her during this period of…great personal difficulty in pursuing this,” Kelly said.

β€œBeing the first, you’re breaking down barriers,” Thom said in the recorded oral history. β€œIf you hadn't pushed back, you would have accepted what you were offered, and I wasn't willing to do that.”

β€œWe’re all made equally. There are differences of course, we’re all equal and different,” Thom said. β€œPeople should be given the opportunity to do what they can do in their own way.”

While at General Motors, Thom was active in Wisconsin’s Democratic Party, earning an invitation to John F. Kennedy’s inauguration in January 1961, for working his campaign. She didn’t attend, which she later regretted.

After Thom left General Motors, she served in the 1970s on the Wisconsin Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women.

She later earned several prestigious awards, including being named a YWCA Rock County Woman of Distinction in 1993.

She was a lifelong athlete, serving on her golf league’s board and on a city golf advisory committee.

She also loved to sew, make jelly, garden and play sports in retirement. She organized Janesville High School class reunions, was active at her church and served on a credit union board.