‘Fly With Me’ documentary profiles early flight attendants and the rights they fought for

Within the Nineteen Fifties and ’60s, “stewardesses have been glamorous. They have been lovely. They have been poised,” says former Delta Air Strains flight attendant Casey Grant firstly of a brand new documentary movie in regards to the historical past of flight attendants.

However over time, hundreds of stewardesses, as these staff have been referred to as then, have been additionally offended and exasperated by the working situations they needed to endure within the sky and on the bottom.

“Fly With Me,” premiering Tuesday, Feb. 20, on PBS’ “American Expertise,” tells the story of ladies employed as stewardesses when airline insurance policies dictated all the pieces from their weight to their marriage standing who went on to struggle — and win — battles for equal pay, gender and race equality and office reform.

“So lots of the girls who grew to become flight attendants have been younger, bold, and adventurous,” says Sarah Colt, who directed the movie with Helen Dobrowski. “Some thought they’d do the job for 2 or three years after which observe societal norms of the ’50s and ’60s after which get married and transfer on. However the job grew to become way more of a profession for them.”

Early within the movie, we be taught in regards to the journey, romance and world journey that stewardess jobs promised along with the numerous guidelines and necessities airways positioned on girls who landed these coveted jobs within the golden age of jet journey.

“You bought this chart, and also you would not even get an interview in case your peak and weight was greater than listed on that chart,” says Ann Hood, former TWA flight attendant and writer of the “Fly Woman” memoir.

On the job, pilots — who have been all male — could possibly be married, however stewardesses couldn’t. On the street throughout layovers, pilots have been up in their very own lodge rooms, however stewardesses needed to share. Stewardesses couldn’t put on eyeglasses and needed to retire as soon as they reached age 32 — lengthy earlier than they could put in sufficient years to safe a pension. To not point out, they have been reviewed often for look, with weigh-ins.

“No different job provided as a lot freedom with such a excessive price of conformity,” says Julia Cooke, the writer of “Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Ladies of Pan Am,” within the movie.

Over time, stewardesses bought savvy. Their struggle for rights in all facets of the job mirrored, matched and helped push ahead what was going down within the broader girls’s and equality rights motion.

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The movie consists of nearly two hours of firsthand accounts and archival footage of all the pieces from classic airline commercials to TV information studies, in addition to feedback and insights from historians and authorized consultants. Step-by-step, “Fly With Me” takes us by vital milestones within the historical past of the flight attendant rights motion, expertly making connections to world occasions underway at every stage.

Featured flight attendants within the movie embrace Patricia “Pat” Noisette Banks Edmiston, who grew to become one of many first Black flight attendants after submitting a lawsuit with the New York State Fee on Discrimination in 1956. It took 4 years earlier than the court docket dominated in her favor.

Barbara “Dusty” Roads, who labored for American Airways, explains how in 1965 she and fellow flight attendant Jean Montague have been first in line to file a grievance based mostly on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the primary day the Equal Employment Alternative Fee opened its Washington, D.C., places of work.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits office discrimination on the premise of race and colour, nationwide origin, intercourse and faith. The lawsuit Roads and Montague filed claimed American Airways’ coverage that stewardesses should retire at age 32 constituted gender discrimination.

A whole lot of different complaints from different flight attendants adopted. And three years later, the EEOC dominated that the obligatory retirement age for feminine flight attendants needed to go. Quickly after, the ban on married flight attendants was out the door as effectively.

Former Northwest Airways flight attendant and union activist Mary Pat Laffey additionally shares her story of what occurred after she grew to become the primary feminine purser at Northwest Airways and found that the airline was paying her male counterparts extra.

Laffey filed a class-action lawsuit in 1970, and by the point the case went to trial, 70% of the Northwest Airways stewardesses had joined the lawsuit. A choose dominated in favor of the flight attendants in 1974, however Northwest appealed.

Eleven years later, the U.S. Supreme Court docket sided with the flight attendants, awarding $60 million in again pay and placing down airline guidelines towards sporting glasses. It additionally struck down the burden limitations that solely utilized to girls.

“Ladies have been lastly allowed to have the identical advantages that the lads had,” Laffey explains. “In the event you have been succesful, you possibly can have a person’s job.”

Whereas that class-action swimsuit was making its manner by the courts, flight attendants based Stewardesses for Ladies’s Rights in 1972. It gained assist from Gloria Steinem and different luminaries of the ladies’s rights motion.

Airline trade advertisements of that period that attempted gaining market share, similar to one from Southwest Airways with sizzling pants-wearing flight attendants and Nationwide Airways’ “Fly Me” marketing campaign, did not assist. However flight attendants and their unions continued preventing — and proceed the struggle right now — for a variety of office protections, truthful pay and equal rights.

“The ladies of ‘Fly With Me’ broke boundaries by turning into flight attendants within the first place, however what’s so outstanding is that they have been additionally on the vanguard of preventing for office fairness,” Colt says. “By exploring this historical past, we present the ability of people to make change and the way gender, race and sophistication are critically intertwined.”

“Fly With Me” is directed by Sarah Colt and Helen Dobrowski and is govt produced by Cameo George. The movie premieres as a part of the “American Expertise” collection on PBS on Tuesday, Feb. 20, from 9 to 11 p.m. EST (test native listings) and also will stream on PBS.org and the PBS App.