In 1958, when Mary Pat Laffey Inman became a stewardess — as they were then called — for Northwest Airlines, she was 20 years old and the clock was already ticking. That is, if she didn’t marry, get pregnant or even gain too much weight before that: All were grounds for termination. Six years later, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, and female flight attendants began to join forces against sexism. It also set the precedent for nondiscriminatory hiring of flight attendants across the industry. But even then, not everything changed: Flight attendants on some airlines were still subjected to “weigh-ins” into the 1990s.

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Persons: Mary Pat Laffey Inman, —, didn’t, Lyndon Johnson, Laffey Inman, Northwest’s, purser Organizations: Northwest Airlines, Civil, Northwest Airlines Inc, Delta Air Lines