EXCLUSIVE: Seducing passengers, skinny-dipping with expats, and partying in between flights: How Pan Am stewardesses became the playgirls of the air during the Golden Age of Travel
Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan-Am, published on March 2, explores the lives of flight attendants during the Golden Age of Travel
Author Julia Cooke, the daughter of a former Pan Am executive, speaks to three stewardesses, who told how flying for the airline was an honor
Pan Am - officially known as Pan American World Airways - was the largest international air carrier that saw mass success in the 1960s and 70s
When you started this project, did you realize that it would contain such rich cultural and political history? What were some of your most interesting or surprising research discoveries?
I had no idea where the project would lead me, really, and I certainly did not think it would lead me toward the Vietnam War. I was so drawn to the contrast between the public image these women were asked to promote beautiful, effortless, glamorous and the really quite dangerous work they performed. I got outraged on their behalf at first; stewardesses were often stereotyped as being insubstantial when really their work contained grave stakes.