{"id":139182,"date":"2021-04-16T13:35:51","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T17:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=139182"},"modified":"2021-04-16T14:25:43","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T18:25:43","slug":"recalling-1941-when-bates-touted-up-to-the-minute-airline-service","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2021\/04\/16\/recalling-1941-when-bates-touted-up-to-the-minute-airline-service\/","title":{"rendered":"Recalling 1941, when Bates touted ‘up-to-the-minute’ airline service"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bates published this photo in the Freshman Catalog<\/em> of December 1941 to publicize \u201cup-to-the-minute transportation available to Bates students.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The airport is either Portland or Auburn\/Lewiston, while the identities of the Bates men boarding the plane are unknown. (The pencil notation on the Kodachrome slide says, \u201cFrosh boarding plane,\u201d and a small Bates pennant can be seen on the luggage of the student at right.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the U.S. entering World War II the very month the photo was published, commercial air service nationally was mostly grounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the outbreak of war, the airline pictured here, Boston-based Northeast Airlines, used its prewar experience flying from Boston to Maine and Vermont to forge a regular military route, the first of its kind, from Presque Isle to Newfoundland, Labrador, Greenland, Iceland, and Great Britain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Bates students board a Northeast Airlines prop plane in this pre-World War II photograph. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this image, the logo on the fuselage of the famed DC-3 shows a smiling Pilgrim astride a plane, while the flight attendant, known as an air hostess back then, has a uniform displaying the distinctive white pilgrim collar. A year earlier, the airline’s name had changed from Boston-Maine Airways to Northeast Airlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Airlines, of course, weren\u2019t the only businesses to retool for wartime. In the prewar pages of The Bates Student<\/em>, a weekly ad for Chesterfield cigarettes always included a celebrity endorsement from the likes of Bette Davis. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cChesterfields are mighty important in this man\u2019s army.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Those ads disappeared for several weeks after Pearl Harbor but reappeared by March 1942 in patriotic form. with the Chesterfield ad touting that it was paying more than $2 million per week in war taxes and that \u201cChesterfields are mighty important in this man\u2019s army. New recruit or old-timer\u2026they all like the cigarette that satisfies.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Northeast Airlines “Junior Pilot Kiddie Wings” from 1950. (Delta Flight Museum photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After the war, Northeast Airlines expanded its routes, flying to a number of New England cities<\/a>, such as Lewiston, Bangor, and Presque Isle in Maine; Burlington and Montpelier in Vermont, and Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket in Massachusetts. The airline was acquired by and merged into\u00a0Delta Air Lines\u00a0in 1972.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the Auburn\/Lewiston Airport\u00a0is a general aviation facility supporting local and regional flights, training, cargo, and corporate activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northeast Airlines, with a smiling pilgrim logo, used to serve Lewiston and a number of other New England cities. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":139188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[31,224],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-139182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lewiston-auburn","category-society-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139182"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139197,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139182\/revisions\/139197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}