THE "WEAKER SEX" GO AIR-MINDED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 270, 13 November 1937, Page 15

THE "WEAKER SEX" GO AIR-MINDED.

American Daughters Of the Sky.

(By ALICE ROGERS HAGER.)

A half-dozen women to-day hold jjjajor executive positions in the airlines of tho United States, four of them making their headquarters in New York City, although their duties are anything but static. These four are Patricia O'Mallcy and Madame Pearl Violette Mctzclthin, of American Airlines; Helen Stansbury, of United; and Marie Sullivan, of Eastern. In St. Paul, Cumille Stein helps rulo the destinies of NorthWest, nml in Salt Lake City Miriam Hoff hn* her finger actively in National Parks' pic

"Pat" (V A. alley, as she is known to her colleiiguea and to the newspaper fraternity, is director of Press relations for the eastern division of American Airlines, one of the moat important and arduous assignments in the publicity field. She itfan old hand at the aviation business, having gone to Washington in 1925, fresh from the New York LTniversity course in journalism, and landed a job in the Navy Bureau of Aeronautics' Press service.

Madame Pearl Violette Metzelthln, also with American, holds the important position of food consultant, supervising the making and serving of some* thing like a quarter of a million meals a year. She at one time) held the chair of nutritfcja at Berlin University, and, slmo taking her present post, baa made new methods of handling food aloft, the development of combination* that will keep attractive under intense changes of air pressure, and the design of a complete new set of equipment for packaging and! serving.,-She admits, with fireworks, sometimes,, that the problems of aerial fboil jservlcei constitute One of the major headache* in ,thc nutrition '.field. '

Helen Stansbury and Marie Sullivan are pioneers of another sort. Miss fullivan, as director of the Women's (Department organised by Eastern Airlines last July takes precedence in point of time by a few months, but Miaa Stansbury, dubbed by the United Air«nes as director of their nascent /omen's Traffic Division, baa a larger territory to cbveT, and ha 9 been called the nationV jlrs't ' air saleswoman. Botb'baVe the" "primary furpose of interesting other women in ying oa passengers and of studying their companies' ships and services from ♦he feminine viewpoint and suggesting •advantageous changes.

By coincidence the two women, in the western area are filling almost identical niches in their organisations and h»v« been doing so for almost the same number of years. When this writer asked a Chicago member of North-west Airlines' staff what Mies Camille Stein's title was he looked bothered and vague, tnd aaidt

~ Koaie? Gosh, I don't know-she'* a little bit of everything. Honestly, I think they call her assistant secretary and assistant treasurer, but if v©u want to know anything about the line shea nearly always the one to ask— she s been in it just about ever since it started."

While in Salt Lake City, also at an office in a municipal airport, is smart, alert Miriam Hoff, nine years with National Parke Airways, now known as its assistant secretary and a national authority on airline insurance problems. She has equally grown up with her line and recently she was persuaded to tell what she thought the opportunity for other women in aviation is.

"Plenty," she said, "to the same degree that there is for a clever, efficient woman in other industries, perhaps a little greater because it is still young and has not had to slough the gay 'nineties' attitude toward the 'weaker sex.' There are hundreds of girls throughout the country who are studying aviation as interestedly as their brothers—they are going to want jobs in a few years, and there will be jobs for them, but only if they earn them by a lively intelligence and a specialised preparation."—N.A.N. A.