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When It Paid To Be Single
Today we celebrate the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, whose passage by the U.S. Congress, at long last, gave women the right to vote. It was a protracted, vicious battle, which began in earnest more than 70 years earlier, in 1848, at the women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. But the opportunity for diverse employment took decades longer and one of the first prized professions open to women was becoming a stewardess. There were strict rules in the early days. You had to be single, a registered nurse, under 115 pounds and less than 5’4” tall. It took until 1968 and the second wave of feminism for these rigid job conditions to be eliminated. Here’s some hard-to-imagine trivia from the archives of United Airlines:
United in 1953 introduced “Executive” all-male passenger flights. The men enjoyed free gifts such as cigars, which the stewardesses often lit for them. A reporter for Playboy magazine wrote, “…the only girls aboard are a couple of unobtrusive stewardesses…”
Photo by Wallace Kirkland, Life Magazine, 1947. “Perfect Posture, McConnell Air Hostess School.”
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This is interesting, thanks for posting. Interesting because one of the first things I wanted to be “when I grew up” was a stewardess. It seemed so glamorous at the time: travel around the world, pretty clothes, international friends, pilots… Unfortunately (fortunately?), the scales have been removed…