Figure 1 – National Airlines flight attendants 1972 in first class cabin. Image from the Wikimeda Commons. Image from Clipperarctic and uploaded by Russavia under creative commons attribution license.

Who can forget F. William Free’s (1928-2003) controversial, and filled with sexual ineuendo, ad campaign for National Airlines “I’m Cheryl. Fly me?”  In a sense, this ad accentuated the essential conflict between the feminist movement of the sixties and seventies and the prevailing objectivization of women. For years, flight attendants rivaled pageant queens in glamour and fashion.  This week NBC News’ website has offered a retrospective on flight attendant dress from the glamorous to the bizarre.  It also serves as a litany of long lost airlines, and it is a brain strain to recollect them all.

Apparently, the distinction of being the first flight attendant goes to Ellen Church (1904-1965), who in 1930 convinced Boeing Air Transport (now United Airlines) that having onboard caped nurses would help alleviate those passengers with a fear of flying.  There is this wonderful photograph from the Boeing archives of the original eight flight attendants standing in front of an A-80.  

My favorite of the vintage images that NBC News’ retrospective is an eye-popping print for Braniff Airlines in 1966 by Pucci (from the collection of Cliff Muskiet ).  Braniff Airlines? Ah yes, I remember Braniff Airlines.  My last Braniff Flight was Boston to Kansas City. It was a blistering day and the flight was so delayed that we were overloaded for the short runway.  So they waited something like four hours for people to get so frustrated that they got off.  Finally, when the weight was acceptable, the plane wouldn’t move. It was so hot that the tarmack had melted under the front wheel…

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/what-they-wore-flight-attendant-uniforms-past-present-n142891