Banks sued Capital Airlines, alleging discriminatory hiring practices. In 1960, she became one of the airline industry’s first Black stewardesses. Now in her late 80s, she shares her story along with other barrier-breaking crew members in “Fly With Me,” a new PBS film about the flight attendants who helped transform their industry — and society as a whole.
“It is very exciting to think how much these women were responsible for changing their own profession, but also the ripple effects that go beyond the airline industry,” said Sarah Colt, who co-directed the film with Helen Dobrowski. “They were really on the cutting edge of a second wave of feminism.”
The directors’ interest in the topic stemmed from a book Dobrowski found in her local library outside Philadelphia. “We were both riveted by it,” Colt said of “Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am,” by Julia Cooke.
During the research phase, they discovered that many key figures who challenged the airline industry’s racist, sexist and ageist policies were still alive. They tracked down Banks in Brooklyn, not far from where she attended stewardess training school. The film closes with a tribute to Barbara “Dusty” Roads, who led the charge against American Airlines’s mandatory retirement age for women — 32. She died in November, after a 44-year career with the carrier.
“Pat and Dusty, they’re sort of the first wave of these women who were standing up for their rights,” Colt said.
During a screening at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History on Tuesday night, Casey Grant, a retired flight attendant featured in the film, said she didn’t set out to become a pioneer when Delta hired her in 1971. She just wanted the job. As one of the airline’s first Black crew members, she was surrounded by prejudice. But her priority was to keep passengers safe.
“You didn’t understand the impact of it,” Grant said. “You did what you had to do. You were professional, and your focus was on the safety of the passengers.”
PBS’s American Experience film will debut on Feb. 20 and can be streamed online. Here are some highlights.
The first flight attendant was a nurse
The documentary opens with the early years of aviation, when flying was a harrowing and dangerous experience. The planes flew under 10,000 feet, unable to escape heavy turbulence. The cabin air, which was neither pressurized nor circulated, reeked of hot oil and cleaning products used after passengers got airsick.
Ellen Church, a registered nurse with a private pilot’s license, dreamed of becoming a pilot, but carriers only hired men. So, she pitched Boeing Air Transport, a forerunner of United Airlines, the idea of placing nurses on planes. The women could use their medical training to care for ill passengers and their charm and beauty to distract them.
In 1930, Church became the world’s first flight attendant or, as they were known back then, “Sky Girls.”
‘20 mannequins in a row’
After World War II, aircraft design vastly improved. The carriers no longer needed nurses; they wanted beguiling hostesses who would dote on the passengers, especially those of the male persuasion. The airlines, which were regulated by the government, also used attractive crew members as a selling point.
To get hired and stay employed, the women had to follow strict beauty guidelines. (The airlines were less interested in their educational pursuits or flight experience.) They had to be a certain height, weight and hip circumference, and wear red lipstick and three-inch heels. Their hair length could not exceed their chin…
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