Review of COME FLY THE WORLD
Stories of the culture icons of Pan Am
Air travel today is of minimal note to our lives. It’s about as banal as driving a car for most Americans. We show up to the airport in our best sweatpants, lament the security theater, squeeze into tiny seats, and fight for armrest real estate.
But air travel was downright glamorous in the post-war era. Magnificent planes filled with model worthy stewardesses in tailor-made designer uniforms. And no one exuded opulence quite like Pan American Airways, or simply know as Pan Am.
In Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am, Julia Cooke tells the stories of boundary-breaking women of Pan Am from the more mundane aspects of beauty standards to their lesser known, yet influential role, in the Vietnam War. Pan Am kicked off the Jet-Age of flight, being the first airline to fly round-the-world flights, invented jet aircraft, and set the standard for what travelers could expect of international travel.
But what made Pan Am what it was were the women – stewardesses as they were called then. Subject to careful selection, rigorous training, and high standards, the women of Pan Am were anything but ordinary. These women were fearless, independent, and intelligent – far more than only their beauty. A job as a Pan Am stewardess in the 1950s-70s, when Pan Am was at its peak, afforded these women opportunities to see the world and have an identity beyond “house wife”.
Freedom. Independence. Adventure. Pan Am gave the women of this era benefits that were otherwise of limited availability to them during this time.
That is not to say, however, that the women of Pan Am were not subject to Mad-Men era sexism. Stewardess were required to maintain strict body size and were fired when they married or became pregnant – standards that these women would also successfully fight through the course of several prominent lawsuits. And, they were subject to harassment by the, mostly male, passengers.
But what surprised me most about these women was the role they played in the Vietnam War. Pan Am began their war efforts by providing regular R&R trips for American soldiers, and charter flights to bring men to and from war. These women also were instrumental in the “Operation Babylift” at the end of the War whereby Pan Am and their stewardesses airlifted thousands of orphans left in Vietnam, many fathered by American soldiers. And Pan Am chartered the final flight out of Saigon – the last commercial American airplane in the city for decades.
The role these women played in popular culture, the airline industry, and for thousands of soldiers and orphans during the Vietnam War is quite remarkable. Cooke’s Come Fly The World is a phenomenal book that I absolutely loved, giving rich insight to strong women and a lost era of jet-age opulence.
Published: March 2021
Format: Audio
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Capote's Women: A True Story of Love, Betrayal, and a Swan Song for an Era by Laurence Leamer (2021)
My Remarkable Journey: A Memoir by Katherine Johnson (with Joylette Hylick and Katherine Moore; 2021)
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