As the United States experienced severe economic depression throughout the 1930s and edged towards war, women and in particular young women who were not skilled or already established experienced anxiety over their futures at home and in the workforce. Their places in the world and the future had become uncertain, and this uncertainty was reflected in the narratives they read. In 1939, Dorothy Bryan of Dodd and Meade explained the concerns of youth and announced a new line of stories called “Career Books”:

Among the standards that Bryan explains was the need for writers and publishers to choose careers that have plenty of openings and opportunities to offer. Fulfilling many of these prescribed requirements for a saleable career book, a competing firm, Cupples and Leon Company, published Betty Baxter Anderson’s Peggy Wayne Sky Girl: A Career Story for Older Girls in 1941.

Anderson describes her novel, “Adventure in the sky with a capital ‘A’.” It’s refreshing to note that Peggy typifies and expounds upon themes of increased opportunity available to women during the war years. Of course it helps her endeavors that she represents a perfect stereotype of an all-American girl, white, attractive, blonde, and clear skinned. Peggy passes the rigid stewardess tests, survives the careful training period and begins her thrilling life in the air; she quickly falls in love with a pilot, and becomes an ace stewardess. Fully empowered by her career and connections in the industry, echoing cadences of the earlier female pilots and possibilities that the wartime years offered women fliers, Peggy learns to independently pilot a commercial plane, living out those ambitions of earlier female pilots even surpassing them mastering the technical hurdles of advanced technology. Peggy ultimately employs her knowledge of piloting when her flight is hijacked and the pilot is incapacitated. Fully empowered by her role as an airborne heroine, and aware that her wings will soon be clipped with her approaching wedding, Peggy boldly states:

Though Peggy’s musings on a future in the cockpit are somewhat misleading given the actual situation of female fliers, her story seizes upon its cultural moment. During the war years, women experienced a new level of freedom and mobility in the workforce. Peggy’s ruminations, like those of many workingwomen, suggested that perhaps the successes of workingwomen would be recognized more fully after the war years. In this scenario, it might even be possible that women could become paid commercial pilots. Peggy Wayne Sky Girl is a compelling story full of action, suspense, and romance, a perfect read for a girl of the 1940s who wanted to know more about the sky’s possibilities for women. It was also a narrative that presented the possibilities of future momentum to other women hoping for a return to the cockpit.

While not published or marketed as a “Career Book,” Patricia O’Malley’s Wings for Carol is also published in 1941. Unlike Peggy Wayne Sky Girl, an independent novel, Wings for Carol, exists as a part of a series of five books, spanning 1941-1946. Within thirty minutes of their graduation from nurses’ school, Carol, a blue-eyed, clear skinned, blonde haired, girl along with her best friend from school Foster depart the campus for stewardess training in Chicago. Almost as soon as they begin their training they realize the important public role they fulfill for the airline, as they run into Mr. Dent from the company’s publicity department:

The following morning, Carol’s face appears on the front page of the local paper: “Foster bounded out of bed. ‘A celebrity,’ she groaned. ‘They’ll be no living with her from now on. Just listen! ‘Beauty takes to the air.’”⁶³ More than one third of the book is devoted to explaining Carol’s experiences in stewardess school, and the ways in which she observes and participates with stewardesses in training as they lived with one another and shared a student culture. The most important character that the reader is introduced to is pilot, Grant Lowrie, the man who asks for Carol’s hand in marriage in volume two, Wider Wings. Carol’s tenure, as a stewardess is natural, and by natural I mean brief. The timing of Carol’s natural departure from stewardessing for a life in marriage is curtailed by the unexpected and devastating bombing of Pearl Harbor: “Grant’s profile was grim-his lips tightened. But he didn’t speak. At last he looked down at her. ‘It’s bad’…her brain began to tick. There was so much work to be done! “Grant, the airlines will be more important than ever! Out country needs them now-more than ever!”⁶⁴ The coincidence of this moment timed with Carol’s marriage is uncanny and, because of its 1942 publication, one can speculate that O’Malley might have been forced to alter her original vision for Carol’s character. In the next edition War Wings for Carol, Carol still leaves the line as a stewardess, however she does it in order to take a desk job with the airline to assist in the war effort. Working as Mr. Ingram’s assistant, Carol learns how women are perceived on the business side of the industry: “I call myself the Vice President in Charge of Odds and Ends….So it’s going to be up to you to see that no bottlenecks develop. It’s a big job for a girl and I thought a long time before I made up my mind to take you. But women must shoulder men’s work, and I suppose we’ll see more of it before this thing ends…and they always do it well…or better. It’s a sad commentary on the stronger sex, Miss. Rogers, but it’s true.”⁶⁵ War Wings for Carol promotes the need for women to participate in the war effort, as well as their value to the workforce, offering a symbolic end reward for unselfish and dedicated efforts, with Grant’s safe and immediate marriage to Carol. No doubt many women, like Carol hoped that their own efforts would too be repaid when their loved ones safely arrived home.