Flying Across America: The Airline Passenger Experience by Daniel L. Rust

Abstract

 Reviews humans and trees: shelter and protection, health and healing,play and imagination,signs and symbols, spirituality and religion. Her last chapter, on mindfulness, discusses the ways humans can be more thoughtful about caring for trees. Enriching the story are fifty poems and a couple dozen photographs, including a photo of her at age six, in a tree, of course. Examples of our connections with trees come from many cultures, many times, and many types of trees and forests. Nadkarni and Stettler’s books share great breadth of interests, commitments to making clear our stake in the wellbeing of trees, and clear, engaging writing. Most important, their love for trees heightens our sense of wonder at these silent, stoic beings. Cottonwood is rich in the vocabulary of genetics; poetry is prominent in Between Earth and Sky.I find the poetry more accessible, but other readers may prefer the genetics. If you are a real tree lover, I encourage you to read them both in quick succession to get the fuller picture. Frederick J. Swanson US Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station Flying Across America: The Airline Passenger Experience by Daniel L. Rust University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2009. Illustrations, photographs, maps, notes, bibliography, index. 272 pages. $45.00 cloth. Daniel L. Rust’s exposé of transcontinental flying from World War I to the twenty-first century is a mine of information with segments encapsulating the stories of such developments as in-flight meals and frequent-flyer miles. The climax is reached after the infamous 1978 deregulation of the airlines.Thereafter,the passenger experience, the heart of Rust’s history, begins to decline,accelerated by the September 11, 2001, attacks and security concerns. As a former C-47 transport pilot, I can appreciate the nostalgic views of when flying was low enough and slow enough that the country passed in panorama and of when American Airlines’ first 747s flew in the late 1960s with lounges that any passenger could enjoy. Those were the good old days, when the customer was king or queen and not a mere dollar statistic. It is ironic that the predominant hue of the book’s dust jacket is “rust,” reminding us that when passenger service started in the 1920s,the aircraft were noisy and, with windows open, drafty. The major public relations problem until 1936 was reassuring passengers that flying was safe. After the introduction of the radical Douglas DC-3, safety was of far less concern, and both newspaper and magazine pieces on flying declined in number because the subject was no longer a novelty.The 1941–1945 wartime experience was unpleasant as air travel really took off. Postwar, the four-engined airliners became available and inaugurated non-stop transcontinental ,as well as transoceanic,flights.Stewardesses were no longer nurses but became hostesses until the 1960s, when they had to share their duties with men. Comfort was sacrificed to the bottom line as seats were pushed closer together to cram more passengers aboard, and passengers began to use reservations systems when booking seats. Quantum jumps in capacity came with the 707/DC-8 era,followed by the quadrupling created bythespeed,range,loads,and amenitiesof the747.ButwhereastheDC-3 serieswascreated and launched in weeks, the modern airliner now takes years to get into service. Rust’s book is well-illustrated for the airliners basically of TWA and American Airlines, two of the original big four, the others being United and Northwest. This book is neither a history of the airlines in the United States nor  OHQ vol. 111, no. 2 a study of government policy and economic outcomes. It is, rather, a social history of a twentieth-century industry. My complaints about the work lie in the realm of the press’ conception and execution of the work. It is a heavy, oversized volume (over three pounds), 10-by-11 inches, or 110 square inches per page; yet the text takes up only 60 percent of that space.Why,then,are the captions so small that even with good vision I needed a magnifying glass to read them comfortably ? Further, statistics are cited on page 11 that differ from those on page 79, without explanation. Capsule histories are...