Interview conducted by Mauree Jane Perry on May 14, 1999.
Final transcript
The interview describes Katherine Milner’s career with TWA (Trans World Airlines) as an air hostess beginning in 1938; hiring and training; work and responsibilities; thoughts on uniforms and importance of customer feedback, including the negative comments contained in “brown letters”; teamwork among flight and cabin crews; camaraderie among her fellow hostesses; experiences as Miss American Aviation for 1939, the contest itself, and her duties as the contest winner; routes: San Francisco to Oakland, Salinas, Fresno, Las Vegas, Boulder City, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, and Kansas City to Albuquerque and Newark; aircraft: Douglas DC-2 and DC-3; compares the experience of airline travel in the late 1930s to present; encounters with Jack Frye, Avis Peach (Chief Hostess), Adele Jenkins (Chief Hostess), Charles Babb, John Graves, James Roosevelt (son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt), Vivien Leigh, and Olivia de Havilland; brief description of San Francisco Airport in 1938 and 1939; experiences as a founding member of TWA’s Clipped Wings International, and her subsequent connection to the organization.
Comments and Suggestions click to expand