'Pan Am' Revisits The Stewardess: Amazing Images Of Female Flight Attendants Through History (PHOTOS, VIDEO)

They maintain cabin safety. They handle irate, inebriated, or just belligerent passengers and their overstuffed carry-ons. They balance family with work schedules that take them away from home for days at a time. They occasionally subdue terrorists, and sometimes they give their lives.

Flight attendants belong to one of the world's most demanding and specialized professions, one also known for being predominantly female and once upon a time requiring employees to meet very specific standards of beauty. It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that 'stewardesses' as they were once called and their work have been highly glamorized, most prominently this fall in the much awaited TV drama "Pan Am" premiering tonight on ABC.

The show, which is set in the 1960s and purports to celebrate the unprecedented independence of female flight attendants in a time when most middle class women were expected to make their families the center of their lives, has been criticized by some as "heavy duty sexism" masquerading as a tribute to female empowerment. And yet the show and its producers do acknowledge, for instance, the absurdity of the physical scrutiny to which stewardesses, who were usually well-educated, were subjected.

To what degree the show revels in or criticizes that aspect of the profession remains to be seen, but "Pan Am" has at the very least prompted celebration of real flight attendants and the hard work they do and have done since their role in aviation was created in 1926.

Earlier this week, HuffPost Travel published a collection of images of real Pan Am flight attendants throughout the now-defunct airline's storied past.

Here we widen the lens with a gallery of photos from LIFE.com chronicling the history of the female flight attendants across multiple airlines, from the early days of flight through the 1960s. Ellen Church, the first stewardess, worked her first flight for Boeing Air Transport (BAT), later known as United Airlines, on May 15, 1930.

(View all 24 images in LIFE.com "In Praise of Early Stewardesses" gallery here, and catch the "Pan Am" trailer below.)

PHOTOS:

For a sneak peek at "Pan Am," here's the trailer.

WATCH:

Comments

[SMASH AUTHORITY]

05:54 PM on 09/26/2011

When did they start calling them flight attendents instead of stewardesses? I HATE political correctness

[leskataus]

10:23 PM on 09/26/2011

That occurred when men started to become flight attendants. I doubt they would like to be called stewardesses.

[cheesesteak wid]

05:02 PM on 09/26/2011

PanAm has the workings of a good show. It has the nostalgic factor of airtravel as being a luxury. The stewardesses of the bygone years have been replaced largely by surely attendants who for the majority do little out of the ordinary to make a good impression on the flying public. Having said this, the flying public are no longer the same, and their outrageous demands or expectations reflect on the precipitous decline of decent behaviour in our society.

[leskataus]

03:11 PM on 09/26/2011

In this type of job, women had to leave by the time they were in their early 30s or when they got married, whichever came first.

[jockmama]

02:01 AM on 09/26/2011

My aunt was a stewardess for TWA during the early-to-mid Fifties, and flew on the most prestigeous runs on Super Constillations. And her stories weren't about glamour or thrills of meeting VIPs. They were about male crew members treating the stews as their personal harems, and management not listening to ANY complaints or problems because there was a waiting line a mile long for the stewardess jobs.

[motown571]

10:03 PM on 09/25/2011

I am old enough to remember the golden era of flying. It was the service we got that put the gold in it,something that is sorely missing in just about everthing these days. 3rd world buses with wings indeed.

[UncleSquinky]

08:25 PM on 09/25/2011

Hope this is the new format for all slide shows on Huff Post. The former one was slow, and tedious and required reloading of the main web page.

As far as "amazing photos", not so much, Mr./Ms. Headline Writer

[LibertyRoy]

08:18 PM on 09/25/2011

Be careful, the liberals here will ask for you to be ban. ned for not using the politically correct term. Freedom of speech is not their strong point.

[Phoebe917]

08:26 PM on 09/25/2011

i don't know, my personal experience has been very good in the US and the caribbean. we usually upgrade to first or business class, so that may make a difference. i tend to get afraid, and also have a tendency towards nausea. the flight attendents go out of their way to offer me comfort and plenty of barf bags. my husband looks after me, but these attendents have always gone out of their way to make me comfortable. one time, i was no nauseated i couldn't eat the food. one flight attendent brought me soup that his mother had made for him to eat, and he gave it me. and it didn't seem forced. once, i was asleep and so was my husband and i must have been curled up indicating i was chilly. i woke up when a thoughtful attendent was covering me up with a blanket. i think if one treats them politely and gratefully, they will treat you the same way. oh, and i forgot the time i peeed my pants on landing, the thoughtful attendent told me where to buy some underwear in the airport we were approaching. just my weird stories, i know.

[sayrock]

07:12 PM on 09/25/2011

McConnell Air Hostess school was a scam. Each airline screened, hired, and trained their own stewardesses. If you had what they happened to be looking for, you might get hired. Having a "diploma" from McConnell carried about as much weight as going to a job interview and telling them you had attended a seminar on how to nail an interview.
And . . that statement about having to be under 5 feet 4 inches is false. You had to be OVER 5 feet 4 inches - security reasons - had to be able to reach the emergency and safety equipment in the overhead storage.

[Terry Thorsen]

06:49 PM on 09/25/2011

A great blog with stories from the 1960s written by a real Pan Am stewardess:
http://panamorag.blogspot.com/

[GaspingForAir]

06:06 PM on 09/25/2011

Dear HP_ The flaws are mounting. Big Shots caption text is always hidden behind black with just a few letters along the left still visible. If I want to read the caption I have to select all and paste it into a text file.

I've tried to report issues and ask questions to your help line before but nothing ever happens. Therefore I am adding a string of moderator triggers in hopes this gets to someone who will actually read it.

[DZISU]

05:53 PM on 09/25/2011

I miss those corteous, happy and professional pretty young women, I abhor the cranky old ladies that populate the industry now

[westnyc]

06:56 PM on 09/25/2011

Most likely, those cranky old ladies you abhor--were once the courteous, happy pretty young women you miss--and; perhaps they haven't changed as much as you?

[DZISU]

09:14 PM on 09/25/2011

Nah

[Randybostonterrier]

08:03 AM on 09/26/2011

You must crave attention in your personal life, I never thought it was up to a stranger, that works as a FA, to smile all the time and pay attention to me, but hey I'm not a male.

[DZISU]

10:48 AM on 09/26/2011

Not crave, just expect common courtesy and a smile from a service provider that markets those qualities in their employees, Pan Am had it way above all other airlines in the proffesional demeanor of their employees. Maybe that is why they went broke, the economy of surliness is apparently more profitable

[knott wrench]

05:44 PM on 09/25/2011

In the TWA Photo, I wonder how Many of the Women, may have been former:

"Air Service Women's Pilots" who under the Direction of Jacquline Cochran, ferried Military Planes across the USA during World War II?

The 1966 United Picture is at about the time my landlady went through Flight Attendant Ttraining with the Airline.

[Earfling]

05:28 PM on 09/25/2011

"3rd world buses with wings"....har. so true

[forestlady]

05:21 PM on 09/25/2011

My mother was a stewardess back in the 1940's for Western Airlines (which was bought out by Delta Airlines). She flew to Japan frequently during the first year right after WWII; scary at the time because she was very light blonde with a chorus girl figure, which meant she stood out like a sore thumb on the street etc and it was right after the U.S. dropped the bombs on Japan. She had alot of really funny stories to tell about that time. I flew from 1978 to 1984, back when professionalism and a smile was extremely important. I had a wonderful time, best job in the world. I met Cary Grant, Flip Wilson, one Queen Elizabeth's lady-in-waiting and a host of other celebrities and VIPs. I travelled all over the world. Now, due to the mandatory sexual molesting we all have to undergo, I don't travel at all. Sad.

[WildTango]

04:45 PM on 09/25/2011

Is this a press release masquerading as an article?