Introduction One may challenge the above quote [not included in this excerpt], but the early years of aviation in the 1920s would fit nicely into The Great Gatsby and its old wealth mixing with the new self-made millionaires of the Roaring Twenties. Much of this new wealth had been made through war production during World War I. World War II would alter civilian aviation and create a climate for the expansion of cheaper air travel for the masses. But that was in the future, and in the 1920s and 1930s, international air travel would be for the more elite. The early days of civilian air travel had only one type of passenger class: first class.
Juan Trippe would take over the fledgling Pan American Airways and turn it into a worldwide airline. His family was old wealth, having made their money in the great Clipper sailing ships of the 1800s.
Another key figure in the formative years of aviation and Pan American Airways was Harry Guggenheim, who would become Charles Lindbergh's mentor. The two met prior to Lindbergh's solo flight across the Atlantic to Paris. Guggenheim told Lindbergh they would get together once he returned from his epic venture. Whether he believed that Lindbergh would make it back or not is open to debate. The Guggenheim family made their wealth in mining and reinvested in the future of the United States by establishing many foundations, including the Guggenheim Fund for the Promotion of Aeronautics. This foundation would be responsible for the development of blind instrument flying, the establishment of the Safe Aircraft Competition and, most importantly, the establishment of major centers of aeronautical engineering throughout the UnitedStates.
Harry Guggenheim was true to his word, and Lindbergh was introduced to the wealthy and connected of the United States at parties in the Hamptons, people like Dwight Morrow and Thomas Lamont of the J. P. Morgan bank, Juan Trippe, Orville Wright, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Theodore Roosevelt Jr., and Herbert Hoover. The groups that met at the parties were the foundation that would push the development of American aviation, including the concept of passenger travel. Dwight Morrow would eventually become Lindbergh's father-in-law, and Harry Guggenheim would appoint Lindbergh as a consultant to the Guggenheim Aeronautical Fund at a salary of $25,000 per year.
Juan Trippe would operate Pan American Airways until his retirement in 1968, experiencing years that would bring glory and almost total defeat. At a Pan American Airways board meeting on March 14, 1939, Trippe would lose most of his power. The China Clipper routes were in the red and the board was not sold on the Atlantic routes to Europe. Eventually, Trippe would take back his power, but the routes would continue to be money losers. At some times, more flights were cancelled due to inclement weather than were flying.
The arrival of World War II and the end of the Golden Age of Flying Boats may have been a blessing to Pan American Airways.
