About this episode

The episode explores the glamorous yet controlled world of air travel in the past, focusing on the training of stewardesses and the impact of union meetings.

In the golden age of flying, air travel looked glamorous, but for the women working onboard, it was tightly controlled. Nell McShane Wulfhart takes us inside American Airlines’ “Charm Farm” where young stewardesses, like Patt Gibbs, were trained to be thin, obedient, and perfectly groomed. But everything changes after Patt impulsively attends a union meeting. The archive you heard was the 1967 commercial “Presenting the Losers” by Eastern Air Lines. The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/ You can listen to new episodes of The Girlfriends: Flight or Fight completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts.

Sponsors

Novel, iHeart Podcasts

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