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As the war efforts of the 1940s developed, the transport of solidaers increased the workload of stewardesses. Nurses were also needed abroad to support the war and so the nursing prerequisite was dropped.¹⁵ In 1941, only about 1,000 stewardesses worked for U.S. carriers, but by 1947 there were 4,077 stewardesses and stewards, representing 4.8 percent of the work force.¹⁶ WWII gave women the opportunity to participate full-time in many areas of the workforce, especially in wartime industry; but when the war ended and as men returned home seeking employment, women were forced again to take their places in the nationâs labor reserves or in unskilled, subordinate, low-paying positions. The stewardess job was exempt from this transition, because it was conceived and upheld as a female job.

Emerging from the war, the 1950s represented a decade of economic prosperity for the United States and a recreation of the American Dreamä emerged. Women clad in hourglass dresses, masters of new-fangled kitchen technologies, and in command of the shopping mall were curators of the dream. Feminism had been pushed to the back of the new middle-class American consciousness, women were marrying younger, having three and four children, and in the public's view, seemingly loving it.¹⁷ While many women were seeking a higher education, educators assured the public that they were simply preparing women to be better mothers and wives.¹⁸ As a workforce with little bargaining power, workingwomen were rarely taken seriously or treated with professionalism by their male counterparts. This was not a unique phenomenon to any female dominated occupation; it was an experience shared similarly by stewardesses, nurses, teachers, and waitresses. As Barbara Melosh asserts in her study of nurses in The Physician's Hand Work Culture and Conflict in American Nursing, there is a formation of a work culture created by employees on the job and evident in distinctive language, lore, social rules, and methods of resistance to constraints imposed by management.¹⁹ Women in various occupations in the national workforce responded to oppressive situations by creating their own ãworkingwomenâs culture. The experience of culture creation and collective participation differs between occupations, and stands out specifically in the situation of UAL stewardesses, who not only created a work culture, but used their culture to recreate an entire image, challenging and changing many of UAL's discriminatory employment practices and policies.

As commercial travel increased through the 1950s inflight services matured in their sophistication. During the first decade of commercial flight, thermoses of coffee and pieces of cold chicken were passed out as the main meal service. The budding industry marketed flight as an experience, and eventually full meal services with china and table linens complimented the experience. Stewardesses were fully integrated into all aspects of the service industry.

A comparison of different work cultures helps to distinguish the stewardess group from other workingwomenâs groups and establishes their unique situation. While not all resistance movements against management are successful, stewardess resistance thrived, because the culture that was shared between these women enabled them to unify their efforts and work together, supporting the struggles of individuals as well for a goal of change. This set the stewardess group apart from women in other occupations, nurses and waitresses in particular.

Stewardesses have their beginnings in nursing, and through the 1960s the two occupations shared many similarities and differences. Like the stewardess job, nursing was also a middle class occupation dominated by women throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Similarly to the stewardess group, nurses also experienced high rates of turnover, which was the result of poor working conditions in hospitals, friction with doctors, the introduction of graduate nurses, and a hierarchy.²⁰ The nursing group was characterized as a loosely organized group that suffered from internal divisions. Whereas stewardesses, in their early days, generally worked without rank, nurses had to contend with a staunch hierarchy that was in part a result of the introduction and constant flux of educational requirements. Graduate nurses in particular caused problems for existing experienced nursing staffs that worked without certifications.²¹ While nurses lacked a parent union to support their goals, stewardesses had the benefit of working with and belonging to the ALPA the pilotsâ union. ALPA enabled pilots and stewardesses to achieve their common goals of getting safety regulations established. Pilots benefited from the support of stewardesses, so they encouraged them to join the union, often times even sponsoring their dues. While dissatisfied with their second-class citizenship in ALPA, stewardesses bided their time learning about union structure, which helped them to later establish a union of their own. Unlike stewardesses, nurses were unable to form a strong union because of the internal fragmentation of their own group.²² By the middle of the twentieth century, nurses lacked a common culture that could enable them to maneuver around the obstacles of their industry and unify them in resistance efforts.

Stewardesses were fully integrated into the service industry and a unique contrast to the stewardess occupation is that of a waitress. In an interesting conversation with several retired UAL stewardesses, when the association of the two occupations arose, the women were unpleasantly surprised.²³ Often referred to as "glorified waitresses," they explained that the two occupations didnât even stand a comparison, and that the implication of one, only suggested a lack of understanding. Their argument: Anyone could be a waitress, with little or no education, with little or no class, with little or no expertise.²⁴ While there are always exceptions, serving tables was generally an occupation open to the general public. To be a stewardess, one had to pass successfully through rigid appearance requirements, complete stew school, learn the aspects of the industry, and essentially the art of stewardessing. In their words, a far contrast from the duties of a waitress, stewardesses considered themselves first and foremost safety professionals.²⁵ Stewardesses worked and enjoyed a privileged status above the general horizon of employed women and were able to share unique experiences that unified the group with a culture.

Often a girl's first experience away from home, stew school played a large part in shaping stewardess culture. The curriculum for aspiring stewardesses included special training in the theory of flight, airline procedures and services, passenger psychology, aviation medicine, personal charm, and grooming.²⁶ This training coupled with strict appearance requirements (height and weight specifically) set the stewardess group apart from the general employed female population. Selective recruiting and training processes signified that stewardesses were members of a special class of women and therefore they were not hired, but chosen. The job at first discriminated in their favor.

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