Come Fly With Me: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am

I'm not great about keeping reading stats, to be honest with you. But I was a little jealous of Stephany's reading stats for 2021, so I'm trying to be better about tracking some things because she was kind enough to send me her spreadsheet categories. That's neither here nor there, but something that did come up when I was compiling my own (pathetic) 2021 stats was that last year I only read three (3!!!) non-fiction books last year. I was definitely avoiding reality and it was really easy to see when I realized that most books I read were romance and science-fiction/fantasy.  ANYWAY. This year, I'm already doing better. I've already read three non-fiction books THIS YEAR and Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am by Julia Cookie is number four. I am taking small steps towards less junk in my reading diet.

Anyway, this book is about the stewardesses of Pan Am. Before there were flight attendants, before men could help people in the cabin, and before it was illegal to discriminate against pregnant women in the United States, there was Pan Am. With its signature Pan Am blue and pillbox hat uniform, the job of stewardess was a highly sought one in a time before women had many acceptable professions, let alone professions that would allow people to travel internationally.

There was a lot of interesting material in this book, from how the airline started as one that would only fly international flights to its role in managing troop deployment in Vietnam to its airlifting of orphans out of Vietnam in the waning days of American involvement in that conflict. There's also a fair amount about what an important role the airline played in the burgeoning feminist movement in the United States.  

All of that aside, this book is an organizational nightmare. It follows the stories of several different stewardesses and keeps jumping back and forth among them until a few of them meet up on one of the orphan transports. I *think* the organization is supposed to be told in a linear timeline of sorts, but because we're reading about one woman's experience and then jumping to another's, it's impossible to keep track of where we are in time. That, combined with the tangents into societal and political happenings, led to this being a frustrating read.  There's so much here, but it just wasn't organized in a way that made any sense.  

3/5 stars

Lines of note:

"On the President Special to Paris, Pan Am gave women passengers orchids and perfume and men cigars after a seven-course meal." (page 10)

Could you even imagine what that plane smelled like? Gross.

"Anyone could get married, was the consensus among the Hong Kong crews. Not everyone could smuggle a newsreel from the war in Pakistan to Hong Kong for a journalist acquaintance or keep a cabin cool while coming into unexpected fire on a flight to Da Nang. To do that and then, later that night, after a date - because why go home at two? - to know the door code for the after-hours club where you could dance until the sun's light dimmed the glowing neon bar signs outside, to luxuriate in the company and the cocktails and the feeling of a young body, alive and all yours, moving passionately - that was the life they sought." (page 100)

This makes the whole thing sound vaguely unpleasant to me.  It's obvious that I never would have been one of those people trying to become a Pan Am stewardess.

"For years, enormous numbers of stewardesses had rejected company rules in secret. They slipped subversive wedding bands on and off their fingers between flights. An estimated 30 to 40 percent of stewardesses hid their marriages from management and kept flying." (page 101)

I chose this because it's fascinating, but also because it's a page after the previous quote. How did the author go from clubbing in Hong Kong to hiding marriages in one page?  She did it by not caring about transitions or things making a lot of sense.

Things I looked up:

palynology (page 5) - The study of plant pollen, spores, and microscopic planktonic organisms, living and in fossil form.

Pan Am building/Marvel or monster? (page 10) - It's  been renamed the MetLife Building. When it was built, it was highly criticized for its uniqueness and jarring nature.  I don't think it's so bad, but what do I know?

A 1963 photograph of the controversial Pan Am Building.Credit...Joseph A. Molitor/Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library, Columbia University

Barbara Perkins (page 31) - A Canadian-American former actress, singer, and dancer. She's 79!

1962 Pan Am Terminal at JFK (page 63) - One of the "most iconic airport terminals of the twentieth century," I guess.