ABSTRACT
Women were not granted access to the service side of the budding air passenger transport industry in the United States until 1930. It was a matter of chance encounter between Steve Stimpson, District Manager of Boeing Air Transport (BAT) and Ellen Church, a registered nurse with ambitions to become a pilot. Church visited his offices in February 1930 resulting in Stimpson making an innovative proposal to employing women instead of stewards. The idea of introducing women into an exclusively male work environment was not met with immediate enthusiasm. Church became the world's first stewardess on May 15, 1930 on a cross-country flight from Oakland, California to Chicago. After a trial period with eight trained stewardesses on the Chicago-San Francisco route, a new career was open to women, fondly called 'sky girls'.
