Trailer | Fly with Me
Preview: Season 36 Episode 2 | 2m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
The lively but neglected history of the women who changed the world while flying it.
Fly With Me tells the story of the pioneering women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card or get a prescription for birth control. The job offered unheard-of opportunities for travel and independence. These women were on the frontlines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.
Corporate sponsorship for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Carlisle Companies. Major funding by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Support provided by:
Trailer | Fly with Me
Preview: Season 36 Episode 2 | 2m 2sVideo has Closed Captions
Fly With Me tells the story of the pioneering women who became flight attendants at a time when single women were unable to order a drink, eat alone in a restaurant, own a credit card or get a prescription for birth control. The job offered unheard-of opportunities for travel and independence. These women were on the frontlines of the battle to assert gender equality and transform the workplace.
How to Watch American Experience
American Experience is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Buy Now
When is a photo an act of resistance?
For families that just decades earlier were torn apart by chattel slavery, being photographed together was proof of their resilience.Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThis is your captain speaking.
We're now at cruising altitude, 35,000 feet.
Small town girls like me looked at a flight attendant and that's the best job in the world The idea that I would get to fly the world was just extraordinary Stewardesses were glamorous.
It just looked like the world wa And I wanted that life.
But no other job offered as much with such a high cost of conformity Would you like some dinner sir?
We were all supposed to look the same We looked like 20 mannequins.
I couldn't find myself in this photograph You couldn't be married, couldn't have children.
They weighed you in every month.
Just for one pound you could be taken off of payrol And the airlines started adding the “age rule ” too.
When you reached the age of 32 they just wanted to get rid of you They were being marketed basically as a Barbie doll.
They were selling sex instead of safety You had people try to squeeze past so they could feel your body I was the only student of color in the school.
She said the airlines do not hire Negroes I was determined somebody of African-American heritage was going to get this job I don't think we realized what a revolutionary we were doing.
The airlines had no idea what was coming That moment was a turning point for me.
And I said the hell with this Why is it okay for a pilot to be married and not a stewardess?
And I thought about it okay, You don't want me here?
Watch this.
These were not women who were setting out to break barriers for women.
They just wanted to keep their jobs Airlines hired these women who were independent and curious And it's amazing to me that airlines would expect that they would be a docile group
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship
Corporate sponsorship for American Experience is provided by Liberty Mutual Insurance and Carlisle Companies. Major funding by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.