Ruth Carol Taylor - Mohawk Airlines Flight Attendant in 1957

In 1957, Ruth Carol Taylor made aviation history by becoming America’s first African American flight attendant.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in upstate New York, Taylor grew up on a farm and graduated from Trumansburg High School. She went on to study at Elmira College and became a registered nurse in 1955 when she graduated from Bellevue School of Nursing in New York City.

Wanting to break the color barrier in the airline industry, Taylor applied to become a flight attendant for Trans World Airlines in 1957 but was rejected due to her skin color. After filing a complaint with the New York State Commission of Discrimination, TWA faced no consequences; however, other airlines began to reconsider their discriminatory hiring policies.

In December of 1957, Taylor was hired by Mohawk Airlines, where she was selected out of a competitive pool of 800 applicants.

On February 11th, 1958, Ruth Carol Taylor made aviation history by becoming America’s first African American flight attendant. Her first flight on the job took off in Ithaca, New York, from the Ithaca Tompkins International Airport with a destination of JFK in New York, New York.