Ellen Church, the first stewardess

[redqueen]

Ellen Church was born on this date in 1904.

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/chasingthesun/innovators/echurch.html

Throughout the 1920s, travel by air was slowly, but steadily, gaining popularity with passengers. One of the reasons flying wasn't more popular with the public was the fact that most people still considered flying too dangerous. In order to win passengers away from trains, the airlines needed to convince the public that flying was, indeed, safe. The one person who would help redefine the image of airline travel in the 1930s was Ellen Church.

Church was a registered nurse from Iowa who was so captivated by flying that she began taking flying lessons. In fact, when Church initially approached Steve Stimpson of Boeing Air Transport (BAT) for an airline job, it was for the position of pilot. Although Stimpson wouldn't hire Church as a pilot, he did see promise in another of Church's ideas. She suggested placing nurses onboard planes in order to combat the public's fear of flying.

Forseeing the tremendous publicity that would result from having nurses on their planes, Stimpson sold the idea to his superiors. In 1930, Boeing Air Transport (BAT), the predecessor to United Airlines, began what other airlines thought at the time to be a bold experiment. BAT hired eight nurses to work as stewardesses on their flights for a three-month trial run. On May 15th, Ellen Church became the world's first stewardess, working the BAT route from Oakland to Chicago. The addition of stewardesses would prove to be an unquestionable success for BAT. Within the next three years, most airlines followed BAT's lead in hiring stewardesses.

The requirements for stewardesses in the 1930s were strict. In addition to being registered nurses, the women had to be single, younger than 25 years old; weigh less than 115 pounds; and stand less than 5 feet, 4 inches tall. The responsibilities of stewardesses in the early years were far from glamorous. In addition to accommodating the regular needs of passengers, stewardesses at times needed to haul the luggage on board, screw down loose seats, fuel planes, and even help pilots push planes into hangars. For their services, the first group of BAT stewardesses earned $125 a month.

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[ismnotwasm]

1. Cool

I didn't know stewardess's had to be RN's back then. Rules for nurses were strict as well now that I think about it. Very interesting piece of history, thank you

[redqueen]

2. I like that she wanted to be a pilot and took lessons...

but when she was rebuffed she still found ways to be involved with the industry she loved.