Pan American World Airways, "Yankee Clippers Carry On" Gordon Grant Menu Art 1952/3
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Pan American World Airways, commonly known as Pan Am, was the principal and largest international air carrier in the United States until its collapse on December 4, 1991.
The airline is credited with many innovations that shaped the international airline industry, including the widespread use of jet aircraft, jumbo jets and computerized reservation systems.
In 1927, Pan Am founder Juan Trippe chose to call his first iconic fleet of flying boats ‘Clippers’. His intention was to evoke the speed, romance, and prestige of 19th-century clipper sailing ships in a modern way.
With early international flights operated by flying boats that landed on water, he reasoned that borrowing maritime terms would have made the unfamiliar concept of air travel feel more established and reliable to nervous travelers.
Clippers were operated by the airline during the 1930s and 1940s and maritime artist Gordon Grant (1875-1962) was recruited to help with the airline’s promotional work for the fleet of aircraft.
Grant’s specialty was depictions of historic sailing vessels and in 1939 he created his first painting of an historic clipper at sea with the modern Pan Am Clipper flying overhead.
This artwork for a special charter flight for the American journalist, newspaper publisher and lecturer James L Wick features a Boeing 377 Stratocaster flying over a 19th century sailing ship. It was created by Grant for Pan Am in the 1950s.
Wick hosted 37 editors and publishers of a tour of Europe and the Near East in 1953.We don’t know exactly where this distinguished group took off and landed but they were the first Americans to enter and report from Hungry and Romania after the raising of the Iron Curtain. Wick and his brother Milton were also among the first party of U.S. journalists allowed inside the Soviet Union after the death of Joseph Stalin.
The legendary French restaurant Maxim's de Paris came on board in the 1950s to provide high-end, gourmet in-flight catering for transatlantic first-class flights, most notably the luxury Pan Am’s ‘President Special’ service
The airline set up a dedicated commissary in Paris maintained by Maxim's to prepare hot meals and fresh provisions for flights that were leaving.
The 377 Stratocaster featured in this menu cover was one of the most advanced and capable propeller-driven transports, and among the most luxurious with its double-decker configuration. It must have been quite a very pleasant charter flight.
Each order includes a print of the interior menu.
All printed in USA.
