In the early novels, written in the 1930s, the stewardess is characterized as a young girl, running away from a problem, often her parents’ wishes for a loveless or premature marriage, or her own broken heart. On the surface she appears mild and timid, inside she is feisty and strong. She is always a nurse by profession and training, and usually a recent graduate. Her nursing background is important because it presents the case that however romantic she might be about flight she is ever grounded with a good head on her shoulders, which makes her an ideal candidate for the job.⁴⁴ Her life is the central focus of the narrative, experiencing personal growth offered by her stewardship, and obtaining the kind of higher education that can only be offered by travel. After she survives a near in-flight disaster, she officially passes out of girlhood and becomes an idealized example of graceful womanhood, concluding her tenure aloft with marriage. The genre can be read as a modern-day “bildungsroman.”⁴⁵ In addition to each of these narrative elements is also a declaration of knowledge of flight often appearing in the forward or credits of the book. Unlike writers of the early female pilot stories, these writers needed to claim to know the ins and outs of the industry, portraying themselves as enthusiastic travelers. These declarations were intended to sure up the credibility of the narrative to the public, as well as prevent misrepresentations from taking over the market. The narrative albeit fictitious, needed to be grounded in reality. The stewardess entered the aviation narrative under the auspice that she is an airborne heroine by right. Unlike her earlier pilot counterpart, who needed to earn heroic status manning complex controls, she won it by exemplifying an ideal of womanhood, and demonstrating her ability to think clearly in moments of crisis. Demonstrating these typical conventions, Air Stewardess, written by Vida Hurst, published in 1934 gave women, many of whom grew up reading about female aviators and other members of the curious public one its first impressions of the stewardess job.

Grappling with a dwindling income and questioning the value of promoting his career by marrying a prominent surgeon’s daughter, Dr. Bartlett calls off his engagement to young nurse graduate Irene Gardner. During their breakup, Irene idly contemplates her future, looking into the sky for an answer. She considers: “The hospital, any hospital, would be haunted by the ghost of their dead love, but high in a heaven-blue sky an airplane darted in and out of billowy clouds. And in that moment of her great need an idea came to her. “I’ll be an air hostess,” she decides.⁴⁶ Once aloft for her first flight as a passenger on her way to stewardess school, Irene ascribes characteristics to flight that also help to characterize the appeal of the stewardess job for women, and especially for women in situations similar to her own:

Stewardess novels often include the perspective stewardess’s first impressions of the women in the occupation. Usually of the stewardess working their maiden flight to stewardess school, or their own impressions of their first public encounter with a team of reporters. These perceptions and occasions helped to illustrate the glamour and popularity of the stewardess job to the public. Hurst writes of Irene’s first perceptions of stewardesses: “Everyone connected with it [the airport] seemed to be young. Irene thought she had never seen a prettier group of girls than the stewardesses lined up hand in hand to be photographed for a San Francisco paper: “Ladies of the Air…None taller than five feet four inches, none weighing over one hundred and twenty-five pounds, none older than twenty-six. Such requirements make an attractive parcel of girl.”⁴⁸

The commentary likens stewardesses to packages, gift wrapped and sent lovingly by their parent airlines to fortunate cities full of eligible men. While girl aviators maintained feminine qualities in their narratives, their skill set, boyish wardrobe, and professional responsibility allowed them to skirt this kind of objectification. For a significant period because of the strict appearance requirements, the public likened the stewardess job to that of a model or actress, sometimes the two even merged, when stewardesses were offered careers in these “sister” industries, which oftentimes downplayed the nature of the service work.

Keeping step with conventions, Irene’s story involves a narrow escape from danger when two fleeing convicts hijack her flight, but the thrust of her story is a discovery of self and a description of the type of woman who could successfully perform as a stewardess. Stewardesses usually worked for 18 to 24 months, their wings clipped by marriage and Irene received the lighthearted warning on her first day of work regarding the main “work hazard,” particular to stewardesses, falling in love with their counterpart pilots. The requirement of retirement when married is very reflective of the depression, while the desire to get married early is reflective of a time when women graduates were increasingly becoming intent on marrying early during the 1930s.⁴⁹ Recovering from her broken heart Irene believes herself to be emotionally equipped to be a terrific stewardess, because unlike the other girls she is “romance proof.”⁵⁰New to the public, and more important than the informative details of stewardess service, was a description of the lives and morals of these women. It was unusual for women to have access to this kind of travel and independent lifestyle and therefore women in the job had to deal with the public’s heightened scrutiny. Pilots’ wives had originally protested the position, believing the stewardesses only wanted to steal their husbands. Addressing these social concerns, Hurst places Irene in the awkward position of dating a passenger, who turns out to be married:

Trying to find peace with her regretful mistake Irene asks her pilot counterpart, “Are any of the other stewardesses foolish enough to have dates with attractive passengers?”⁵² What is important in this interaction is that Irene innocence is conveyed, when taken advantage of by a male passenger, she demonstrates the incredible moral strength of her character, her desire to be professional, and demonstrates a lesson learned. “Never date passengers” is a rule she learns to live by.⁵³ Further demonstrating her regard for professionalism, unlike other stewardesses, Irene does not use her job to enjoy the company of the man she’s fallen in love with: “The girls often changed schedules, so that they might ride with the man they were interested in, but Irene wouldn’t do this.”⁵⁴ At the conclusion of the story, Irene finds herself happily comforted with her engagement, and Hurst gives able to give commentary on the occupation, through Irene’s final thoughts: “It’s a profession for the young…One place where youth is in demand. And it is the most thrilling profession in the world, but I would gladly give it up to be Mrs. Barney O’Sullivan.”⁵⁵

Another novel similarly titled, Air Stewardess, written by Nellie Graf, an “ardent air traveler” published in 1936 also follows the early conventions of stewardess heroines, and demonstrates a heightened focus on glamour. The protagonist Nerine also a nurse has committed the understandable sin of falling in love with her patient, as well as the social error of falling in love outside of her class. Grant, her romantic interest, is determined to marry inside his class, and yet seeks to continue to explicate control over Nerine’s life, forbidding her to become a stewardess. Unwilling to be controlled, encouraged that she is living in “an age of freedom for women” Nerine seeks escape becoming a stewardess.⁵⁶ Hired by Skyways, Nerine flies with her former love interest’s best friend, a pilot named Ferd and while accruing miles, the two foil the machinations of a criminal network, and in the process Nerine transforms herself into a level-headed, quick thinking, sophisticated woman winning Ferd’s heart. The teaser to the story explains that this is a thrilling, gripping, glamorous romance of the skyways.⁵⁷

Nerine’s job isn’t typical for a stewardess at first. Hired as a substitute, she flies the “specials,” charter flights for weddings, groups on sightseeing jaunts, and movie stars who want to travel alone.⁵⁸While Nerine’s story concentrates more on glamorizing the job than Irene’s story and presents a fair amount of misinformation for the sake of glamour, Graf does offer a truthful glimpse into the job’s requirements. Nerine listens to the following speech at her first day of training:

Nerine and Irene are two fictional stewardesses who share many similarities, both nurses, both brokenhearted, and both experience personal growth, and find happiness through marriage to their pilots, a salient prescription of possibility for young women growing up under gross limitations in the 1930s.