Femininity in Flight: A History of Flight Attendants

Kathleen Barry

Published by Duke University Press 2007

Femininity in Flight

A History of Flight Attendants

Kathleen Barry
Edited by: Daniel J. Walkowitz

In the series Radical Perspectives

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822389507

Overview
Contents

About this book

Considers flight attendants as cultural icons, looking at the history of the occupation and how attendants redeployed the "glamorization" used to sell air travel to campaign for professional respect, higher wages, and women's rights.

Author / Editor information

Kathleen M. Barry has a doctorate in history from New York University. She has taught American history at NYU and the University of Cambridge.

Reviews

“Femininity in Flight is outstanding. It is the most thoroughly presented book on femininity, work, and pink-collar activism to date. It expands the contours of the women’s rights movement and complicates the grounds on which women make demands for better working conditions.”— Eileen Boris, author of Home to Work: Motherhood and the Politics of Industrial Homework in the United States

“Femininity in Flight is the first book that tells the story of the flight attendant occupation as a whole and gives us the history of the occupation in so compelling and rich a fashion. Kathleen M. Barry offers us an entertaining and witty account of how flight attendants embodied changing notions of femininity, and then she boldly challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that it was those very cultural constraints that in part spurred flight attendant activism.”— Dorothy Sue Cobble, author of The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America

“[Femininity in Flight] combines all the strengths of a scholarly monograph—extensive archival research, a solid historiographical framework—with the kind of stylish layout and eye-catching illustration more common in books for the general reader. And Barry writes with clarity and wit. She tells a complicated story, but engrossingly.”

-- Joshua Zeitz American Heritage

“Femininity in Flight makes a significant contribution to our understanding of labor feminism, joining a body of work that challenges the notion that feminism was essentially a white middle-class movement. . . . A great read; it will keep you enlightened and entertained through even a lengthy flight delay.”

-- Nan Enstad Labor History

“[A] sophisticated and detailed study of flight attendants. . . . One of the many strengths of Barry’s book is the incorporation of the history of technology into her social and cultural analysis. . . . Readers will learn much from this deeply researched book.”

-- Dennis A. Deslippe The Historian

“Barry provides an entertaining study of American flight attendants since the 1930s, filling a major void in scholarship on labour history, women’s history, and tourism. Drawing particularly on memoirs, union records, and industry publications, Barry convincingly argues that stewardesses and their allies were vital to the advancement of second-wave feminism and the modern labour movement.”

-- Anthony J. Stanonis Canadian Journal of History

“Barry shows how ‘pink-collar’ activists among the ranks of flight attendants worked to improve the status of their profession. . . . Barry argues that the struggle to win professional respect was made particularly difficult by the conflict between the effortless glamour that attendants were expected to project and the tedium and difficulty of their actual responsibilities.”

-- The New Yorker

“Barry tells a fascinating story about the history of flight attendants and their success challenging deeply rooted gendered stereotypes that were largely invented by the airline industry to maximize profit and then exploited by air travelers and the public at large. . . . [E]ssential reading for historians and students of the twentieth century.”

-- Lisa Phillips Labour/Le Travail

“Barry’s feminist analysis is clever and somewhat poignant, for it sees that in the role of the air hostess a vision of female selfhood and freedom has been forced to rub, rather uncomfortably, against a rather ogling set of corporate requirements.”

-- Andrew O’Hagan London Review of Books

“Soar through the pleasures and plights of females in flight with this highly informative read. . . . With a no nonsense writing style, well-documented evidence, and telling photos (marvel at the hot pants uniform on page 183), Barry demonstrates how flight attendants’ long history of organizing and fighting for their rights made them crusaders for all women and key contributors to second-wave feminism. After reading this you’ll step on a plane wanting to salute any veteran attendants for their journey as you embark on your own.”

-- Paula Wehmeyer Bust

“This well-researched book traces the evolution of flight attendants from glamorous sky queens to cabin safety experts and members of trade unions.”

-- Air & Space

"One of the great strengths of Femininity in Flight is the broad context within which Barry views flight attendants' struggles, in terms of women's work, union organisation and second-wave feminism. By contextualising her study so well and drawing out the parallels between stewardesses and other pink-collar workers, Barry has produced a book with wide appeal and relevance to many interested in labour history, the women's movement, and the growth of service work."

-- Rosie Cox Times Higher Education

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
ONE. ‘‘Psychological Punch’’ Nurse-Stewardesses in the 1930s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
TWO. ‘‘Glamor Girls of the Air’’ The Postwar Stewardess Mystique Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	36
THREE. ‘‘Labor’s Loveliest’’ Postwar Union Struggles Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	60
FOUR. ‘‘Nothing But an Airborne Waitress’’ The Jet Age Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	96
FIVE. ‘‘Do I Look Like an Old Bag?’’ Glamour and Women’s Rights in the Mid-1960s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	122
SIX. ‘‘You’re White, You’re Free, and You’re 21—What Is It?’’ Title VII Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	144
SEVEN. ‘‘Fly Me? Go Fly Yourself !’’ Stewardess Liberation in the 1970s Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	174
EPILOGUE. After Title VII and Deregulation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	211
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 323
Illustrations
- Other: 19 b&w photos

eBook

Published: February 28, 2007
ISBN: 9780822389507