When I started reading Julia Cooke's Come Fly the World, I admit I had preconceived notions of what this nonfiction book would be about. The subtitle is "The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am". So I assumed it would be about the man-made requirements the women had to meet in order to become stewardesses and what it meant for them to be flying all around the world.

What I didn't realize was that I'd learn so much more about what these women were required to do, and what they did to aid U.S. troops, refugees, and their fellow women.

The book mainly focuses on the Pan Am airline because that was an exclusively international airline, so the women who applied for jobs were seeking a way to see the world. These were adventurous women by nature, women who didn't necessarily want to enter into marriage and motherhood right away. So being a stewardess gave them a way to explore and do so independently.

However, there was a Catch-22 in that in order to keep their jobs, the women had to meet physical requirements (height, weight, overall look) and wear outfits designed to be pleasing to the mostly male clientele. They were treated as sex objects, but they also knew how to evacuate a plane in an emergency.

There's a quote toward the end of the book that really summed up everything I was thinking about it:
"It's too much effort to address the disconnect between the perception of the job as all glamour and access amid the optimistic globalism of the 1960s and its actual context, which also entailed objectification and misunderstanding, war and danger - the dark side of that globalist vision."

March is Women's History Month, and I urge you to consider reading this book and learning more about this overlooked group of women.

Come Fly the World is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and is on bookstore shelves today. I received a free e-ARC in exchange for this review.

The bubbly looking cover may lead reader to believe this is a tell all about the life of a stewardess - salacious stories of famous passengers, men in every port, and dealing with strange people. But there have been plenty of those 'memoirs' written and this is a different animal altogether: a thoroughly researched view of Pam Am's stewardesses as told through three individuals with the emphasis on the historic milieu.

What we get is not stories of individual flight anomalies but the macrocosm in which Pan Am was operating and how the stewardesses dealt with world events. Pan Am was closely tied to the US Government in those early eras and as such, many stewardesses were pulled into wars, political turmoils, unstable countries, and especially changing laws/mores to women and races. As such, the three women whose stories we follow are smartly chosen: a European, an all-American Caucasian, and an African-American. It provides a broad context of the different experiences each stewardess had, especially through the lens of their own situations and perspectives.

Yes, Pan Am in the jet age was glamorous and the stewardesses enjoyed the freedoms this new world provided. And despite the 'sex-symbol' and especially advertisements meant to turn them into objects of lust, they were highly educated and valued for that intelligence. The book makes interesting contrasts between the "Fly me" and "Coffee, Tea, or Me?" attitudes that came with other airlines and how Pan Am managed to maintain a higher standard of class for its cabin crew.

The first part of the book covers the beginning of the jet age, cold war, Viet Nam war, and introduction of the world changing 747. In other words, the Juan Trippe era of Pan Am. The second book deals with the late 1970s forward, including airline jacking, changing cities (Beirut, Thailand, etc.) and a shift toward women having more rights and respects.

In all, because it was so well researched and put everything into context, I found this to be an excellent read. There are enough books out there making stewardesses look like mercurial sex kittens. For once, it was a pleasure to read about aviation with a more grounded and realistic view toward the women who crewed what was, at the time, America's premier airline. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publishers.

This book not only takes an interesting look at the lives and lifestyles of Pan Am stewardesses in the 60s and 70s but also at the world at large during that time.

The Vietnam War and the fight for equal female rights are most prominently covered. And, perhaps a little surprisingly, the three stewardesses through whose eyes we mainly see this story unfold had been largely involved in both.

The author, over the span of five years, has conducted several interviews with five Pan Am stewardesses and we get an account of their time working at the company. However, three of them get a lot more coverage than the remaining two and the book almost reads like a biography of Lynne Rawling, Karen Walker and Tori Werner at times. Almost. Cooke chose to tell the history of Pan American World Airways mostly through their stories. Through the stories of three women that wanted to see the world and experience a feeling of independence that was not available to many women at the time. A time when acceptably feminine roles where pretty much limited to nurse, teacher, librarian, secretary.

On the one hand airlines offered them the chance to live a life that was not available to other women, but the flipside of course were the questionable hiring policies.

"”Attractive appearance will be foremost in importance,” read a 1963 American Airlines supervisor handbook, the sentence underlined for emphasis and elaborated on in excruciating detail: “We can sometimes pretend a person is attractive, if we admire them for some other reason. [Hiring such people] should be avoided.”"

And don’t get me started on regular weigh-ins and the fact that these women actually had to quit their jobs if they got married or reached the age of 32 or 35 (depending on the airline).

But these were confident and educated women (10 percent of Pan Am stewardesses had attended graduate school at a time when only 6 to 8 percent of American women had graduated from college). The public image of stewardesses (created in no small part by the advertising campaigns of the airlines) might have been one of glorified Playboy Bunnies, but they were anything but. And change was about to come. Although it needed hard work to make it happen. And change was needed in more ways than one.

"Delta put on a comprehensive defense in one of the first suits, filed by a stewardess who was terminated when her marriage was discovered. In another suit, United submitted an eighty-page brief detailing the reasons why only young, attractive women could address the “legitimate” business of meeting the social and psychological needs of its passengers: “Men *can* carry trays, and hang up coats and assist in the rare event of an emergency — they *cannot* convey the charm, the tact, the grace, the liveliness that young girls can — particularly to men, who comprise the vast majority of airline passengers … [men cannot] add to the pleasure of the trip, the loveliness of the environment or the ego of the male passenger.”"

However, even though it touches on it, this book is not about the discrimination of men in the profession of flight attendant. It is about the discrimination of women in nearly all walks of life and how the women of Pan Am also stood for that change that was about to come.

And of course the job of a stewardess was about far more than carrying trays and hanging up coats. It was a life of responsibility and excitement. And also danger, as is shown by several chapters about the Vietnam War and the conditions under which Pan Am flew soldiers in and out of warzones. The developments around the war are as extensively covered here as is the battle for equal female rights and is perhaps even more prominent in this book than the development of the airline industry and of Pan Am as a company in particular.

Sometimes it feels like Cooke couldn’t quite make up her mind about what she wanted to write exactly. All the themes she covers are interesting, but she’s jumping around a lot, sometimes making it hard for the reader to keep up. I also wish she had given a little more room to the one black stewardess among the five women she is telling us about. Her chapters were interesting and sometimes infuriating:

"Airline executives openly admitted that they feared losing their market share if the women who served mostly white passengers were Black. They were also concerned, as one <i>New York Times</i> article explained, that “existing and potential ranks of white stewardesses would dwindle fast if the ‘glamor’ of the job were ‘down-graded’ by the employment of Negro girls.”"

…

There are still some battles to be fought.

The thing this book does best is to show how these women, regardless of the color of their skin, were striving for something greater, for a life of more opportunities, for excitement and adventure.

It made me long to get onto an airplane and visit other countries again. But it also made me better understand what challenges these women were facing.

"A very few of the stewardesses, especially those who crewed the more dramatic and dangerous flights, self-identify as veterans of war. Relatively few place their work in historical context or speak openly with civilians about the job’s more difficult moments. It is too much effort to address the disconnect between the perception of the job as all glamour and access amid optimistic globalism of the 1960s and its actual context, which also entailed objectification and misunderstanding, war and danger — the dark side of that globalist vision.""

3.5 stars

Overall this is a surprisingly deep and educational book that is a little rough around the edges, which is likely down to it being a review copy that was still under review by the author and publisher. Therefore, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt and round up. The content is certainly worthy of a four-star rating. I hope the final product will also include some pictures. My review copy didn’t.

Author Julia Cooke is an amazing writer and researcher - Come Fly the World honors the work of intelligent and cool young women during the 1960's. This book presents this history of hard working women who risked their lives and traveled to scary places across the globe while facing harassment and misogyny everyday in their place of work. A terrific book for people to learn more about the history played by women!

All I know about the golden age of flying is from the movies and TV shows. And as we all know, Hollywood often doesn't exactly tell the truth. So I was eager to learn more about the stewardesses of this age, known for their glamour and somewhat loose morals. Come Fly the World delivered.

Come Fly the World is the story of the stewardesses of Pan Am airlines, an airline that flew exclusively international flights and was the leader of the jet-age American airline industry. The book focuses primarily on the stories of four stewardesses, but only loosely as they relate to the larger narrative. It was interesting to learn about the life of a stewardess, which offered more in terms of independence than was typical of a woman of that time. The role that these stewardesses played in the Vietnam War was also new, and very interesting, as was the rules that the stewardesses had to live by (weight checks, uniform requirements, retire when married, no pregnancies, etc.).

While I enjoyed learning new things, I found the narrative of the book rather disjointed. I hard a hard time keeping track of all of the people mentioned, especially the four women that formed the nucleus of the story. Someone would be introduced, we would stick with them for a chapter, and then meet up with them again several chapters later, by which time I'd forgotten where we'd last left them.

In all, a good read for anyone interested in learning about airlines and women's history.

Great read that was well-researched with fascinating stories. Interesting to see how much commercial aviation has changed over the years as well as how involved it was in the Vietnam War.

Interesting topic. I had never read too much into the jet age, and the lives and adventures of the women were fascinating to read about. The women lived such adventurous lives. The working conditions and work environment highlighted some of the big gender and racial discrimination occurring during the time frame. Also, I loved that the author included an epilogue to follow-up on the lives of the women she highlighted in the book. Overall, I really enjoyed the subject matter.

.I wish the book was organized better. The flow and character lines seemed choppy, and I did not feel the book had a true flow until Part 3. Honestly, I wish the Vietnam War aspect of the book would have been the center section. The noble and courageous acts of these flight crews were incredible! I found this part of the book to be more affective and emotional than Part 1 or Part 2.

A well-written book if you interested in the history of the aviation industry with a focus on PanAm in the '60s and the '70s.  I found the Vietnam stories very interesting and informative.

This book was very different than what I expected. I thought it would be about flight attendants flying all over and having a great time seeing the world. Focusing mostly on Pan Am in the 1960s and 70s, that is how the book began. The book illustrates the lives of three women and their flying careers as well as their personal lives. I had no idea that the airlines were involved in military deliveries in Viet Nam. I was very intrigued to read about the babylift where they rescued orphaned children. Certainly it was a different time, because civilian airlines aren’t involved in military operations usually. They were involved in all sorts of dangerous situations like hijackings and being shot at. It was an interesting book, unlike any I’ve read before. Quite an eye-opener.

On first seeing the beautiful retro cover for this book I thought this would be a tongue and cheek retelling of adventures of hostesses working for the glamourous Pan Am airlines, boy was I wrong. Whilst it does follow the story of a few ladies working from the company between 1966 and 1975 they did so much more that just these women were amazing. Facing prejudice and discrimination in a time where most women were stay at home wives and mothers and had limited job opportunities, these women helped change history, helping carry soldiers and children, out of war zones including Vietnam and other tropical islands in the South Pacific, these women were incredible they put on their uniforms and went to work.

This is an amazing read for anyone who used to work in the industry or anyone just interested in the aviation industry in general. I learnt so much from this book, it was amazing.

Thank you to HMH and Netgalley for this ARC which I received for free on exchange for my honest review.

My rating scale
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Absolutely loved it! Gave me a warm fuzzy feeling or made me cry. And took me on an emotional rollercoaster.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Really liked it. Will read more by the author and other books in the series.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - It was just okay, didn’t move me, but don’t feel like I wasted me time reading it either.
⭐️⭐️ - Didn’t like this book and probably won’t read other in the series.
⭐️ - I did not care for this book at all and feel like I wasted my time reading it

I was expecting a memoir type from the past reliving the heyday of Pan Am. This was more a history of the company. A history of the flight attendants and tales from the crew would be a delight. It was still an enjoyable read.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for making an early copy of this available to me.

Come Fly the World is a biography of Pan Am. Readers will get to know a handful of women who worked as stewardesses for the airline during the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s, but Pan Am itself is the center of this book. Pan Am flew internationally so this also takes readers to many corners of the world - some fun, some dangerous, and all memorable in their own way.

With no frills writing, this account was interesting, informative, and well-paced. I learned much about the airline’s involvement in American, and world, history. Pan Am’s involvement in Vietnam is a big chunk of this book. Anyone fleetingly interested in travel writing, recent history, or aviation will likely find this enjoyable.

Pan Am was living its last days when I was born, so I didn't get to experience Pan Am glory. But one thing lived on: Pan Am girls! Their glory beating that of Pan Am itself was something that was talked about even year's after company's dissolution. Even today when I dress up certain way and people jokingly ask "when is your next flight?", I tell them I took a page from Pan Am girls' book. They were the highlight of the flight industry. Now looking back though all I can see is how they were objectified. And no one really talked about who they really were and what it took to be them.

This book comes to rescue. This is a recount of experiences of several Pan Am stewardesses when Pan Am was taking over the skies. I, not American, did not know the role these people and their services were playing during Vietnam War. I had no clue about the Operation Babylift. These ladies pretty much witnessed (maybe more than just witnessing) any major event that US government decided to involve in. Imagine the trauma that could come with it! They were not these bubbly, bimbo girls - they had to be well versed, educated people who could speak several languages and while reading the cabin work as a network builder for passengers.

I'm glad that we get to hear about the actual experiences of these women and fights they had to fight to get where they were. Their battle to make people acknowledge them as a human being, a woman, an individual instead of certain body type with pretty face requires more screen time than it's getting now. This is a book on feminism. This is a book on demanding rights!

Come Fly the World by Julia Cooke centers on the Stewardesses (Clare, Tori, Lynne, and Karen) of Pan Am starting in the late 1960s when air travel was beginning to be more accessible and depicted a hip, jet-setting lifestyle. The rampant sexism noted is cringe worthy but unfortunately, completely expected. That said I did really enjoy learning about the training these women went through - simpler, domestic type things like how to carve a roast while in flight (what?) to keeping calm during a hostage takeover and their travel adventures.

The historical backdrop - Cuban missile crisis, the Viet Nam conflict and refugee flights, the fight for equality: both the civil rights movement and the birth of the National Organization for Women are also interestingly discussed. The possibility of their plane being strafed by ground fire, watching firefights and napalm drops while flying troops into Da Nang or meeting diplomats was not unusual. Stewardesses were some of the first to file suits with the EEOC, wanting to keep their jobs after they married or “aged out.” Stewardesses worked under extraordinary circumstances! Smart, brave, and determined these women may have started off just wanting to travel the world but they became ground breaking, career driven women who led the way.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC copy - wonderful read.

I love the cover! It has a really glam, yet retro look to it. It brings to mind all the great things you associate with air hostesses. This cover certainly attracts your eye to it and encouraged me to think that the book would be from the point of view or at least solely about air hostesses.

The book does follow a few women, Karen, Lynne and Tori being the ones that stay in my mind. All these women have to fit/fill certain expectations such as weight and looks which would most likely be frowned upon, in the era we live in now.

The uniforms, rules and expectations varied slightly depending on which Airline the women worked for. Though this book is centred more on the Pan Am Air Hostesses it does reference other airlines too. Pan Am ran “grooming classes” which one of the ladies featured in this book called Karen wrote home about to her mum saying the course would cost £500!! Karen also revealed to her mum in the same letter that she had never known that blue eyeshadow de-emphasized her blue eyes — she should choose a greenish hue — or that a hint of a bright white below the eyebrows would highlight the arch. One of the grooming supervisor’s had reshaped her eyebrows, and they now looked so much better. In 1969 the spring trainees were the very first ones to be allowed to keep their hair long but it was on the condition they should keep it clipped neatly at the nape of their neck. This new freedom didn’t bother Karen as she had her hair cut into a bob, the same style she has worn it in during her time working for the US Army.

The women were also given four pages of “packing tips” which contained gems like building a core wardrobe in drip dry fabrics as they are easier to manage and do not need a lot of extra work ironing. The tips also contained a note on wearing comfortable shoes!

The Pan Am Stewardess manual gave advice on things like lip shape, lipstick/make-up application, correct posture, skin care, and haircuts. It says in the book that these grooming lessons took nearly as much time as the first aid training!
For makeup, a natural look with red, rose red or coral for lips and nails. Pan Am wanted their hostesses to look pretty, feminine and sophisticated. They employed people to ensure the stewardesses were meeting their specific guideline. If a stewardess wanted to change her hair, she needed to have permission from the airline. Stewardesses were expected to have clear skin, be between 5’3 and 5’9, and be willing to follow the rules. The stewardess skirt had to be exactly one inch below the knee, so it doesn’t raise and be too revealing when the stewardesses were reaching over head lockers and doing their jobs on the plane.

The book also covered difficult journeys the Air Stewardesses had to cope with such as transporting young men from America over to fight the Vietnam war. Also, the evacuation effort made and how integral the Air Stewardess’ willingness and professionalism to come up with solutions as quickly and efficiently as possible. The conditions these air hostesses had to cope with in the air whilst helping ill, scared children was awful. I should imagine if this occurred in the present day the Air Stewardesses would be treat for a form of PTSD. Not in those days though they were expected to pick themselves up, put a fresh smile on their face and continue on.

The book also covers some Airline history and also the many lawsuits for women’s rights, for job progression etc, and men’s rights to become Air Stewards, sexism, racism etc. Some of the articles covered were ones that I honestly wouldn’t of necessarily thought of. I guess in the present day we take a lot for granted, as being our rights to have/do.

I’ll totally admit I really enjoyed all the Air Stewardess grooming and training details, it would have been great to have some photographs or illustrations too. I even found the military filled flights fascinating to read about, and the evacuation of orphans though harrowing it was something I wouldn’t necessarily of thought of the Air Stewardesses having to do. Some of the Airline history in places felt a tad long winded and I could feel myself losing interest, but luckily the different chapters are kind of mixed up a little with the more serious history, regulations interspersed with anecdotes from actual Air Stewardesses.

My immediate thoughts upon finishing the book were quite mixed, though I found parts of the book really interesting others seemed to drag on in minute detail on things I didn’t find particularly noteworthy.

To sum up I really enjoyed some parts of the book yet felt some parts were somewhat drawn out in my opinion. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting . . . but it was still an okay, fairly interesting read.

I honestly wasn’t sure what I was going to get with this book as it was a “read now” book available on NetGalley and was very pleasantly surprised. Each chapter of the book followed a real Pan Am stewardess on her journey with the company. It covered everything from the hiring process, day to day life, to the airline’s involvement with the Vietnam War. Some things I knew, like the strict rules for who could be hired and what rules the women had to live by. Some things I learned, like the details of the flights in and out of Vietnam.

Some non-fiction books are very dry and this was not that. The writing style was easy to read even while dealing with difficult subjects like the Vietnam War, racism, objectification, and sexism. It was very clear that the book was extremely well researched. I was pleased to find that about 25% of my ebook was sources and that the Acknowledgements was full of interviewees names. I will happily read any other books written by Julia Cooke.

Thank you to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Remember when stewardesses were called that and had to wear skirts, be a certain weight, and had to be single? Come Flythe World embarks on the experiences of women who worked for Pan Am. It was fascinating to read about the history and several extended personal stories of women who played integral roles in jet age. I enjoyed reading about the opportunities afforded to these women, but also about the legal battles they had To endure as the world changed in the late 60’s-70s. Seversl,chapters are devoted to the Vietnam War due to Pan Am being the main carrier in and out of Saigon. I remember when Pan Am folded along with 3 other major carriers, especially TWA. Cooke had contributed a readable, knowledgeable book on seversl subject that intersect: women’s history, US history, air travel, social history, and social changes.

This book was so engrossing! I love this time period and the author goes into such detail that you feel as if you are on the plane with these women. I would definitely recommend this book to friends and family.

*I was given early access to this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

I was really interested in picking up Come Fly The World by Julia Cook, which focuses on Pan Am flight attendants (referred to at the time and in the book as stewardesses), because I wanted to get a deeper look into the lives of these women who I've only really seen in Mad Men like depictions and sexist ads from the time. And boy was I not disappointed! Julia Cook's writing style is very easy to read and draws you into the lives of these women, whether it's in the day to day of their flights or in the women trying to end workplace discrimination. It's a must read if you're even vaguely interested in aviation history or travel history.

The sections of the book that I found the most interesting and compelling were the ones dealing with the Vietnam War and the experiences the women had not only with the soldiers but also the refugees fleeing the war. By far the most moving was the chapter talking about airlifting the children, most of them infants, out of Vietnam during the month before the war ended. This was something about the war I hadn't really heard talked about as much as the experiences of soldiers or the anti war movement and is something I definitely want to look into more in the future.

4.25 stars

Having a brother who was a steward for Pan Am from the late 70s to 1988, I found this book extremely interesting.