Breaking Barriers: Ruth Carol Taylor’s Impact on Aviation

When boarding an aircraft today, passengers are greeted by crew from all races, nationalities and backgrounds. However, in the 1950s, the aviation industry was very different. Airlines sold “glamour” along with tickets, and the job then known as “stewardess” was tightly policed by race and gender norms. Hiring standards were often code for exclusion, and airlines routinely refused Black women outright. One woman intended to change all of that.

Ruth Carol Taylor first worked as a registered nurse before turning her attention to changing the colour barriers that existed in American aviation by becoming a flight attendant.

This is her story.

Early Years

Taylor was born in Boston on December 27, 1931, to Ruth Irene Powell Taylor, a nurse and William Edison Taylor, a barber. At the time, black civil rights in North America were virtually non-existent. This was many years before Martin Luther King made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963, and times were hard for many African Americans. Later, the family moved to upstate New York to set up a farm, and Taylor followed in her mother’s footsteps, studying nursing at Bellevue School.

Racial prejudices were not the only thing hindering many hopeful “air hostesses” at the time. Weight, height, overall appearance, marital status, and age all affected how long your aviation career would last or if airlines would even hire you. These barriers persisted for many years until crews such as Taylor and Iris Peterson began to fight for equality in the industry.

In early 1957, Taylor applied for a job with US major Trans World Airlines (TWA). Her application was rejected under “physical standards,” a euphemism frequently used to enforce discriminatory hiring. This angered Taylor immensely, and she was determined to fight back. And fight back she did, filing a complaint against TWA with the New York State Commission of Discrimination. No action was brought against the airline, but other companies began to rethink their hiring policies for ‘minority’ crew members.

Joining Mohawk

Mid-Atlantic carrier Mohawk Airlines was the first to do so, and Ruth and 800 other black applicants applied. Taylor was the only successful candidate, and in December 1957, she was hired. This was the first of several milestones for Mohawk. When they eventually merged with Allegheny Airlines in 1972, they had broken numerous moulds within the industry, including becoming the first to use a centralised computer reservations system, the first to utilise flight simulators and the first regional carrier to inaugurate jet aircraft into service.

Taylor’s training was completed early the following year, and she was ready to take to the skies. On February 11, 1958, history was made as Ruth Carol Taylor became the first-ever African-American Flight Attendant, operating a flight from Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport to New York’s JFK Airport.

This was a ground-breaking moment in both American and civil aviation history. Three months later, TWA reversed its decision and finally hired Margaret Grant, the first major US carrier to hire a ‘minority’ crew member.

Forced To Resign

While Taylor’s role had broken racial barriers within the industry, another ridiculous regulation of the time would ultimately lead to her departure just six months later. Before applying to the airlines, Taylor was engaged to Red Legall. But being a married woman was forbidden by all carriers in the 1950s and 1960s. So, as her wedding day approached, she was forced to resign from Mohawk.

Although short-lived, her flying career had not only changed the aviation industry forever but had also been a significant coup in the fight for black civil rights in America.

Shortly after leaving, Taylor and her husband moved to the British West Indies. But much like her flying career, her marriage was short, and the couple divorced after the birth of their daughter.

Continuing The Fight

Her fight for racial equality didn’t stop when she left Mohawk. Taylor continued working to improve civil rights, reporting on the 1963 ‘March On Washington’ and becoming an activist for consumer affairs and women’s rights.

She returned to New York in 1977, where she co-founded the Institute for Inter-Racial Harmony. This institute developed a test to measure racist attitudes known as the ‘Racism Quotient’. In 1985, she wrote ‘The Little Black Book: Black Male Survival In America’, a survival guide for young black men in the United States.

Speaking to JET Magazine in 1995, Taylor admitted that she had never actually wanted to become a stewardess; she merely did it to break the racial barriers that existed in the industry:

“It irked me that people were not allowing people of colour to apply… Anything like that sets my teeth to grinding”

It took 50 years after that historic first flight for her achievement to be recognised, when, in 2008, the New York State Assembly acknowledged her accomplishments.

Slow To Change

Although Taylor’s hard-fought victory at Mohawk and TWA’s subsequent hiring of Margaret Grant had broken boundaries, airlines’ promises to change their ways were not forthcoming. American carriers hired no further African-American flight attendants until Capital Airlines took on Patricia Banks in 1960.

Her employment was only possible after the New York State Commission Against Discrimination ordered the company to hire Banks. She had applied four years earlier and had fared well in their initial screening process. However, the airline failed to follow up on her application and did not clarify why they would not give her a position. A public hearing in February 1960 ruled that Capital had illegally discriminated against Banks because of her race, and they would have to hire her.

Even when African-American crew members finally began flying careers with the major airlines, they still faced an uphill struggle for equality. In 1962, Northwest Airlines employed Marlene White, who later claimed that the carrier had singled her out for degrading treatment. Although she had graduated in the upper third of her class, she was fired without cause. She was later reinstated after she also filed a complaint.

It took a long time for airlines, especially in America, to accept African Americans as equals and hire them as Flight Attendants. There is no doubt that if it hadn’t been for the battle carried out by those first incredible women, Marlene White, Margaret Grant, and, of course, Ruth Carol Taylor, it would have taken much longer for the fight for racial equality within our industry to be won.

Taylor sadly passed away on May 12, 2023, at the age of 91.

© Confessions of a Trolley Dolly by Dan Air