Starting in the late 1950s, in computer facilities at MIT, Stanford, and other research universities people began to encounter persons who had both unusual programming skill and an obsession with the inner workings of the machine. While ordinary users viewed the computer simply as a tool for solving particular problems, this peculiar breed of programmers reveled in extending the capabilities of the system and creating tools such as program editors that would make it easier to create even more powerful programs. The movement from mainframes that could run only one program at a time to machines that could simultaneously serve many users created a kind of environmental niche in which these self-described hackers could flourish.

Indeed, while administrators sometimes complained that hackers took up too much of the available computer time, they often depended on them to fix the bugs that infested the first versions of time-sharing operating systems. Hackers also tended to work in the wee hours of the night while normal users slept. Early hackers had a number of distinctive characteristics and tended to share a common philosophy, even if it was not always well articulated:
• Computers should be freely accessible, without arbitrary limits on their use (the “hands-on imperative”).
• “Information wants to be free” so that it can reach its full potential. Conversely, government or corporate authorities that want to restrict information access should be resisted or circumvented.
• The only thing that matters is the quality of the “hack”—the cleverness and utility of the code and what it lets computers do that they could not do before.
• As a corollary to the above, the reputation of a hacker depends on his (it was nearly always a male) work— not on age, experience, academic attainment, or anything else.
• Ultimately, programming was a search for truth and beauty and even a redemptive quality—coupled with the belief that technology can change the world.
Hackers were relatively tolerated by universities and sometimes prized for their skills by computer companies needing to develop sophisticated software. However, as the computer industry grew, it became more concerned with staking out, protecting, and exploiting intellectual property. To the hacker, however, intellectual property was a barrier to the unfettered exploration and exploitation of the computer. Hackers tended to freely copy and distribute not only their own work but also commercial systems software and utilities.

During the late 1970s and 1980s, the microcomputer created a mass consumer software market, and a new generation of hackers struggled to get the most out of machines that had a tiny amount of memory and only rudimentary graphics and sound capabilities. Some became successful game programmers. At the same time a new term entered the lexicon, software piracy (see software privacy and counterfeiting). Pirate hackers cracked the copy protection on games H and other commercial software so the disks could be copied freely and exchanged at computer fairs, club meetings, and on illicit bulletin boards (where they were known as “warez”). (See copy protection and intellectual property and computing.) The growing use of on-line services and networks in the 1980s and 1990s brought new opportunities to exploit computer skills to vandalize systems or steal valuable information such as credit card numbers. The popular media used the term hacker indiscriminately to refer to clever programmers, software pirates, and people who stole information or spread viruses across the Internet. The wide availability of scripts for password cracking, Web site attacks, and virus creation means that destructive crackers often have little real knowledge of computer systems and do not share the attitudes and philosophy of the true hackers who sought to exploit systems rather than destroy them.

During the 1980s, a new genre of science fiction called cyberpunk became popular. It portrayed a fractured, dystopian future where elite hackers could “jack into” computers, experiencing cyberspace directly in their mind, as in William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Count Zero. In such tales the hacker became the high-tech analog of the cowboy or samurai, a virtual gunslinger who fought for high stakes on the newest frontier. Meanwhile, lurid stories about such notorious realworld hackers brought the dark side of hacking into popular consciousness. By the turn of the new century, the popular face of hacking was again changing. Some of the most effective techniques for intruding into systems and for stealing sensitive information (see computer crime and identity theft) have always been psychological rather than technical. What started as one-on-one “social engineering” (such as posing as a computer technician to get a user’s password) has been “industrialized” in the form of e-mails that frighten or entice recipients into supplying credit card or bank information. Criminal hackers have also linked up with more-traditional criminal organizations, creating rings that can efficiently turn stolen information into cash. In response to public fears about hackers’ capabilities, federal and local law enforcement agencies have stepped up their efforts to find and prosecute people who crack or vandalize systems or Web sites. Antiterrorism experts now worry that well-financed, orchestrated hacker attacks could be used by rogue nations or terrorist groups to paralyze the American economy and perhaps even disrupt vital infrastructure such as power distribution and air traffic control. In this atmosphere the older, more positive image of the hacker seems to be fading—although the free-wheeling creativity of hacking at its best continues to be manifested in cooperative software development.

Mutual funds is an investment vehicle developed in the United States beginning in the 1920s. The idea was borrowed from the London financial market, where unit trusts had been packaged and sold for a number of years. In a traditional mutual fund, investors buy shares in an investment company, which invests in a wide array of stocks or other financial instruments. The packager of the mutual fund diversifies the holdings of the company, and the individual’s investment is thus diversified in the same manner. For the share price of the fund, the small investor is able to mitigate risk for a relatively small investment—something impossible to do otherwise. When mutual funds were first packaged and sold in the 1920s, originally as unit trusts, many were not fully diversified but invested in other mutual funds or companies in which the manager had a special interest. When the 1929 crash occurred, many became almost worthless after originally commanding a high share price. As a result, they became the subject of a congressional investigation in 1933 looking into the causes of the crash and the behavior of brokers and investment bankers. As a result of the investigation, Congress passed the Investment Advisors Act in 1940, requiring investment companies selling funds to the public to follow the guidelines for public offerings outlined in the SECURITIES ACT OF 1933. The funds’ rate of growth remained relatively slow until the 1950s, when they began to pick up during the bull market of the 1950s and 1960s.

Their next and greatest period of growth occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, after Congress passed legislation creating self-directed retirement plans and allowing greater portability among the plans. By the end of the 1990s, there were more mutual funds in existence (approximately 8,000) than there were common stocks listed on the stock exchanges. As a result, the funds’ behavior in the stock market had a great effect upon individual stock prices and the market indexes as well. After the bear market of 2001, a major scandal erupted in the industry when it was discovered that many mutual funds were allowing other institutional investors to use their facilities for trading after the markets were officially closed, in clear violation of rules established for their own behavior.

A more recent phenomenon has been the growth of a related fund, the hedge fund. Reserved for wealthy and institutional investors, hedge funds are not yet required to be registered with the SEC. As a result, many of their activities and portfolio compositions are not made public. Many of the hedge funds use the facilities of mutual fund companies to trade their own portfolios. Although their investment strategies can be markedly different from those of a traditional mutual fund, the two are related conceptually and have similar appeals although to different investors.

There are two aspects of identity in cyberspace, both of which are intriguing but problematic: Outer identity is the name or other descriptors that are identified by other people as belonging to a particular person, and inner identity is a person’s sense of who or what he or she “really is.” Users of online systems such as chat rooms or games have the ability to use a variety of names (pseudonyms) or to be effectively anonymous. In games, the identity used by a player is represented by a virtual representation called an avatar. Other players (through their own avatars) will encounter the avatar and identify it by physical appearance, behavior, and what it tells about itself (the “back story”). While opportunities to do this emerged in the 1970s with paper-and-dice role-playing games such as the very popular Dungeons and Dragons, there are significant differences between online identity and these earlier games. People played “D&D” in person, so it was relatively easy to maintain a distinction between a character a person was “running” and the person himself or herself. Also, these role-playing sessions were fixed in time and place: After slaying the dragon, the players went home. Indeed even the term “role-playing” made the comfortable assumption that the activity was a pretend, make-believe identity assumed by the player. Virtual game worlds began in the 1980s with text-based MUDS (multi-user dungeons) and similar online environments.

Today game worlds are graphically immersive and persistent. Although there are games focused on the traditional battles and quests, others such as Second Life are best described not as games at all but literal second or alternative lives that persons can participate in for hours a day. In these worlds an avatar can own property and make commitments, even a virtual form of marriage. In many cases ingame goods and money can actually be exchanged for “real world” money. And crucially, unlike the D&D encounter, in these virtual worlds the “real person” behind an avatar need never be revealed.

National Bank Act (1864) is legislation passed during the Civil War designed to provide some structure to U.S. banking and currency. The law created a national currency for the country, making it more difficult for state banks to issue their own money, as had been the case in the 19th century. National banks were created that became 296 National Labor Relations Act note issuers, replacing the state banks. The law was, in fact, a currency act, although it did create a new class of bank.

The act also created the office of comptroller of the currency, which became responsible for overseeing banks that registered with it, allowing them to use the name national bank. The banks had capital requirements and other regulations that they had to observe in order to meet the new designation. The new national banks took over the function of issuing currency under the auspices of the comptroller. They were also required to old one-third of their assets in TREASURY BONDS, which had to be deposited with the comptroller, who in turn issued national banknotes, using the bonds as collateral. The act helped the United States consolidate a sloppy currency situation and helped reduce fraud in the old payments system. In the past, when the state banks issued money, a great deal of fraud occurred, and many merchant banks made a specialty of helping customers detect counterfeit notes. Detecting bogus BANKNOTES was an art prior to the Civil War. After 1864, the situation improved dramatically since the note issuance process now was more uniform and had a central regulator for the first time. But the act fell far short of developing a central bank for the United States because there was still no lender of last resort in the country. The actual supply of money could become less than what was needed, especially if the economy required a dose of extra money and credit. This would be referred to as inelasticity in the money supply, and it became a political issue before World War I. Between 1865 and 1913, the major New York banks usually decided among themselves the proper course of remedial action to be taken when the stock market collapsed or a large bank failed. But for all the shortcomings, the comptroller of the currency remained the only regulator of banking until the FEDERAL RESERVE was created in 1913.

New Deal is the name given to the first administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, covering the period 1933–37. The term was used to suggest that legislation and social programs would be enacted to address the needs of working and middle-class citizens, not just those in upperincome brackets. It was first used in Roosevelt’s nomination acceptance speech before the Democratic National Convention in 1932. Social and economic legislation was passed, especially before 1936, encompassing a wide spectrum of programs ranging from securities legislation to social security programs. During the first 100 days of Roosevelt’s administration, the White House proposed and Congress passed sweeping legislation concerning the financial markets and banks. The objective was to pass legislation that would end the Depression and help stimulate the economy while proscribing practices, especially in the securities business, that many believed were responsible for the economic slowdown. Among this legislation were the SECURITIES ACT OF 1933, the BANKING ACT OF 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Act, and the National Industrial Recovery Act, all passed by June of 1933. The SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT was passed in 1934, regulating stock exchanges for the first time. After the first round of legislation was complete, the second 100 days began, and Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act and created the WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION. All were designed to either regulate sectors of the economy or create jobs for the unemployed.

The legislation also created a myriad of new government agencies, all known by their initials. They ranged from the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Agency) to the WPA (Works Progress Administration). They become known as the “alphabet agencies,” and some eventually were dismantled. Others, like the Social Security Administration, became permanent. Others would follow, such as the FEDERAL NATIONAL MORTGAGE ASSOCIATION in 1938, during Roosevelt’s second administration. A serious blow was dealt to the New Deal when the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June 1933, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1935. The agency it created, the NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA), had been instituted to develop a code of fair practice for various businesses, which were voluntarily participating in the program. The companies participating in the process were writing codes of conduct for their respective businesses, including specific standards of quality, working hours, minimum wages, and price floors for goods they produced. When it was declared unconstitutional it was generally assumed that the NRA was benefiting business and that many businesses were in favor of it. The AAA was declared unconstitutional in 1936, joining the NRA. After the Supreme Court packing controversy in 1937, only a few significant
pieces of legislation were passed, including
the Housing Act of 1937 and the Fair Labor Standards
Act in 1938. Reform slowed when it
became apparent that the Depression was continuing,
especially when a severe RECESSION
occurred in 1937.
While not successful in ending the Depression,
the New Deal nevertheless provided a great
deal of social legislation that became part of the
bedrock of society, especially Social Security.
Much of this legislation, when combined, is
referred to as the “safety net” erected to prevent
economic institutions and society in general
from crashing again. It also helped establish a
firmer hand of government in public affairs than
had been the case previously, leading to more
REGULATION in general. Much of the apparatus
established by the New Deal became useful as
World War II approached, and many government
agencies began to direct their attention toward
the war effort, especially the Reconstruction
300 newspaper industry
Finance Corporation, actually founded in 1932,
that helped many companies finance and build
facilities to aid the war effort.

The Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is an agency of the U.S. Department of Commerce that examines and issues/registers patents and trademarks. The Patent Office was created in 1790 and, for more than 200 years, has represented federal support for the progress of science and the useful arts. In 1870, the Patent Office also took charge of issuing trademarks, creating the modern-day PTO. Patents give inventors a legal monopoly if an invention or device is novel, useful, and nonobvious. A patent is the governmental grant of an exclusive right to make, use, or sell an invention for a specified period, usually 17 years. In contrast, a trademark is a word, phrase, logo, or other graphic symbol that distinguishes one manufacturer’s product from another. The main purpose of a trademark is to aid consumers in identifying brands and products in the marketplace and is akin to a guarantee of a product’s authenticity. A trademark’s duration is indefinite, as long as it continues to represent goods in commerce.

The Constitutional Convention of 1789 created a federal patent system rooted in the Constitution itself. Article I, Section 8, authorizes Congress to award exclusive rights for a limited time to inventors. Thomas Jefferson was a significant contributor to the early federal establishment of the patent system. However, the patent system fully realized its potential in 1836 with the establishment of a formal system of patent examination, complete with professional examiners. Patents on critical inventions in American history, such as the light bulb and the telephone system, came to symbolize the technological development of the 19th century. In the 20th century, the patent system underwent significant changes. In the 1920s and 1930s, the public viewed large companies as having too much power via patents that dominated their respective industries. Courts became less willing to enforce patent rights until the 1940s, as the nation became involved in the war effort. The military called on inventors to quickly create a large number of new technologies. By the time the war had concluded, Congress favored a stronger patent system, which resulted in the 1952 Patent Act, the first major revision in the patent code since the 19th century. The result of 326 Penney & Co., J. C. the Patent Act of 1952 was a period of strong protection in which the patent office issued patents freely in comparison to its earlier, more rigorous examinations.

Although patents were being issued more freely to inventors, the federal court system was reluctant to uphold patent rights. In addition to being reluctant to uphold these rights, circuit courts also differed as to the doctrine and attitudes toward patents. Again, Congress responded to these developments by passing the Federal Courts Improvements Act, creating the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) in 1982. One of the original, primary functions of the CAFC has been to hear all appeals involving patents. As a result, patents are more likely to be upheld, and injunctions against patent infringers are more easily realized than earlier in the century.

Trademarks differ from patents in that they do not seek to protect something new. In fact, a trademark does not require any degree of inventiveness, only that a distinctive mark is used in commerce. Trademarks were protected in the United States through common law until 1870, when Congress enacted the first federal trademark statute. That statute was later struck down by the Supreme Court, and in its place Congress enacted the Act of 1881, which based protection for trademarks in the COMMERCE CLAUSE of the U.S. Constitution. The trademark statute was modified in 1905 and again in 1920 until, in 1946, Congress enacted the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. §1051 et seq.), which continues to govern the protection of trademarks today. In addition to administering the laws related to patents and trademarks, the PTO advises the secretary of commerce, the president of the United States, and the administration on patent, trademark, and copyright protection as well as all trade-related aspects of intellectual property.

Options markets are organized markets for put and call options, originally on common stocks, which developed alongside the securities markets in the 1970s. Along with futures and swaps, options markets are part of the derivatives markets that have developed mostly in Chicago and New York to help investors hedge risk on commodities, securities, and other underlying instruments. Puts and calls (options to sell and buy) were traded informally on an over-the-counter basis since before the Civil War. Originally, a broker would arrange for an investor to buy or sell a put (option to sell) or call (option to buy). The investors on both sides of the deal would then wait to see if the buyer would exercise the right to the stock at the predetermined price. But options quickly became vehicles for manipulation and fraud. Stock market operators used them in stock watering schemes and as ways in which to manipulate the price of a stock.

In the FUTURES MARKETS, options on futures contracts were banned on the major markets, including the CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE, in the 19th century. As stock trading grew more popular over the years, trading became more uniform as options were traded on an over-the-counter basis, but the market was often illiquid and lacked REGULATION. In the late 1960s, volatile STOCK MARKETS created the need for more uniform options on a broader array of widely held common stocks that investors could use for hedging purposes. Organized option exchanges were developed in Chicago at the Chicago Board Options Exchange in 1973 and then at the AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE in 1974. The BLACK-SCHOLES options model helped investors and traders value options more precisely and led to their faster development. Each exchange listed options on the stocks it wanted to trade. Despite the fact that the markets are derivatives markets, the Securities and Exchange Commission is the regulator of equity options because they represent common stocks.

After 1975, options on futures contracts again were permitted when the COMMODITY FUTURES TRADING COMMISSION was established by Congress. Options also were developed for other financial instruments, including bonds, stock indexes, and precious metals. The markets continued to expand rapidly although not all stocks have options listed. In order to qualify for an options 320 Owens, Michael J. listing, a stock must fulfill a requirement laid down by the respective exchanges, not unlike those that the stock exchanges demand of a company before its stock can be listed. Currently, most options contracts use a variation of the Black-Scholes model for valuation.

After completing his second novel Salem’s Lot, Stephen King decided to move his family to Colorado for an extended holiday in the late summer of 1974. When they visited the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park in late September, King thought it would be a perfect location for a ghost story. The hotel led his three-year-old son to have a nightmare in which a fire hose chased him down the corridor. King then remembered his 1972 novel plot, Darkshine, which contained the idea of a location inspiring dreams. He also added his personal feelings of insecurity into the character of Jack Torrance despite the fact that King was at the height of his career.

Former alcoholic and ex-schoolteacher from Vermont, Jack Torrance applies for the job of caretaker of the Overlook Hotel, Colorado, following his dismissal for assaulting a pupil. The obsequious manager, Ulman, reluctantly hires him due to the influence of Jack’s former drinking partner, Al Shockley, whose syndicate controls the hotel. Jack and his family will move into the hotel during the winter season months of October to May. Jack intends to write a play during that time and hopefully return to his old job in Vermont, since Al is also on the school board. However, Jack’s five-year-old son Danny experiences nightmares about them. Overlook while he waits for his father to return. While Jack learns about the Overlook’s violent history (including the former caretaker’s murder of his family and final suicide), Danny’s imaginary playmate Tony warns him about the hotel. However, Jack returns and takes his family to the Overlook on its closing day. The black cook, Halloran, recognizes that Danny shares the power of the “Shining,” a hypersensitive mechanism enabling him to experience things nobody else sees and foretell the future. He warns Danny to stay away from Room 217 and reassures him about what he might see. However, the Torrance family begins to experience past manifestations from the Overlook’s history, such as a masked ball on August 29, 1945, the spirit of a woman who committed suicide in Room 217, and moving hedgerow animals. Jack discovers a scrapbook about the Overlook’s history near the basement boiler whose pressure he has to control. Both Jack and Wendy suffer from past memories of parental abuse. Eventually, Jack becomes affected by the Overlook Hotel, which wishes to use him to obtain Danny’s “Shining” powers.

Jack attempts to murder Wendy in the hotel bar, but she knocks him out with a bottle and confines him to the large hotel pantry. Jack escapes with the aid of the former caretaker, Grady, who is now a spirit in the hotel. Earlier, Danny sent a telepathic message to Halloran in Florida who has flown to Boulder and now makes his way to the Overlook in a snowcat. Halloran reaches the Overlook but has to fight his way past a hedge lion. Inside, Jack severely batters Wendy and seeks to kill Danny with a roque mallet to gain favor with the Overlook Hotel. He overpowers Halloran and eventually confronts Danny.

However, a vestige of the old Jack Torrance returns, and the loving father disfigures his own face with the mallet before the Overlook gains final control over him. Jack then realizes he has let the Overlook boiler gain a dangerous high pressure. But he is too late to prevent it exploding. Before this happens, Wendy, Danny, and Halloran manage to escape and see the spirit of the Overlook “assume the shape of a huge, obscene mantra” like a nest of hornets Jack had disturbed while repairing the Overlook’s roof before the winter storms set in. An epilogue depicts the survivors living in western Maine. Halloran looks after Wendy and Danny before they move to Maryland. The novel ends with the three experiencing a peaceful moment in the afternoon sun.

In the 18th century, stock traders conducted an outdoor market on Wall Street in lower Manhattan to trade stocks and commodities. The market was very limited both by location and by weather, and when it became impossible to trade outside, the traders often moved indoors to coffeehouses, also located on Wall Street. This general locale became the site of stock trading in New York City. In 1791, the early stock market suffered a serious setback because of speculation by William DUER, a former finance official during the Continental Congress. Duer speculated heavily in land and became overextended in his dealings, causing the market to collapse. As a result, the traders realized that they needed to form an organization to control their own membership and organize the market. A meeting was held under a buttonwood tree and was known as the Buttonwood Agreement. It became the foundation for the New York Stock & Exchange Board in 1817 and its successor, the New York Stock Exchange. The post-Buttonwood brokers would meet daily to transact business in the securities of the day—mostly government bonds. From those humble beginnings emerged one of the world’s largest marketplaces, home to more than 3,000 listed securities and a daily volume in excess of a billion shares. With 1,366 seat-holders (memberships), the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) has attracted most of the world’s largest corporations to its listings and counts among its members firms representing most of the financial capital in the securities industry. The NYSE’s marketplace is built upon a specialist system of executions. Each security listed is assigned to a specialist unit that is charged by the exchange to maintain a “fair and orderly market.” Over the years this has come to mean that the specialist must buy securities from sellers when there are no public bids and sell to buyers when there are no public offerings in a method that maintains the continuity of the marketplace. In fact, the specialist is involved in less than 20 percent of all transactions, with the balance involving customer meeting customer at the prevailing market price. As the industry has grown, these specialist units formerly numbering more than 100 have merged to about two dozen in recent years as the supply of capital for these functions are available only to the largest entities in the industry.

The NYSE has grown exponentially since its founding. Stock tickers were first used in 1867, and the exchange experienced its first millionshare day in 1886. Although it experienced many panics in the 19th century, the 1929 crash was the worst day in its recorded history. After World War II, individual investors began returning to stock investments, and volume and activity began to increase. In 1972 the first salaried fulltime chairman, James Needham, took office, and in 1975 the first consolidated TICKER TAPE was introduced along with negotiated commissions. Technology has greatly changed the structure of the floor and the method of order entry. Whereas once all orders were delivered by hand to the trading posts and either executed or left on the specialist book for later execution (for which the specialist received a small fee), today most orders arrive electronically. The NYSE has developed a Dot System for automatic delivery of all small lot orders directly to the specialist post and a Super Dot for large-size orders to follow the same route. As a result of these changes, the role of the retail floor broker, that individual who walks around the floor executing orders, has been vastly diminished. The role of the broker who has the ability to handle or execute professional large-size institutional orders continues to be an important part of the daily volume on the floor of the NYSE.

In recent years, with the growth of electronic entities that look like stock exchanges but have none of the mandated regulatory functions of an exchange, the New York Stock Exchange has been the target of more and more competition. In fact, many of these electronic networks (ETNs) have applied to the Securities and Exchange Commission for status as exchanges. Expanded trading facilities have also led to increased volume. By the late 1990s, volume was well over a billion shares per day, greatly fueled by the increased number of MUTUAL FUNDS doing business and the increased volume generated by hedge funds. The New York Stock Exchange has also indicated a desire to demutualize (go public) to put itself in a better position to compete in the quickly changing financial services industry. Under the current structure, the NYSE is run by the votes of 1,366 members, and all decisions go through an arduous path of committees, boards, and staff. As a public corporation, decisions would be made and implemented quickly, a very necessary requirement in today’s changing world. The question of going public does not resolve the question of the role of the NYSE as a regulator of the firms in its membership and as the organization charged with overseeing the business principles of its members. Many feel that a publicly owned NYSE cannot be both a competitor and a regulator in the securities industry at the same time.

An American airline founded by Juan Trippe in 1927. Originally, the airline was a one-route mail carrier flying from Miami to Havana, Cuba. Its premiere flight was on a chartered Fairchild airplane. In 1929, Pan Am began flying the mail route from the United States to Mexico City. The company then won other contracts to fly to the Caribbean and South America and, in 1931, from Boston to Maine. Within a short time of being founded, the company began using seaplanes, which were ideally suited for some of its more difficult routes. After buying planes from the BOEING CO., Pan Am began offering a cross-Pacific service on its Pacific Clipper. When a flight was interrupted by war in the Pacific, the plane had to return to New York by circling the globe, becoming the first commercial flight to do so. During the war, the The Panama Canal under construction (LIBRARY OF CONGRESS) airline did long-distance contract flying for the government, reinforcing its credentials as the most experienced long-haul airline in the country.

After the war, when jet engines became easier to produce, Trippe was the first customer for them, anticipating the commercial possibilities of flying customers to distant locations as quickly as possible. In 1958, Pan Am’s clipper America inaugurated jet service to Paris from New York using a Boeing 707 and became the first commercial jet service. Pan Am’s jet services, plus its use of the Boeing 747, the original jumbo jet, opened the market for relatively inexpensive jet service to all and gave Pan Am the unofficial designation as America’s flagship air carrier. The company’s success could be clearly seen in Manhattan, where the Pan Am Building towered above Grand Central Station in midtown, with a heliport on its roof.

The airline also used Boeing 727s to help evacuate American personnel from Vietnam at the fall of Saigon. The plane blown up by a terrorist bomb over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 was Pan Am Flight 103, and the company was severely affected by the incident. It continued to fly but only with increasing financial difficulties. The company remained the country’s best-known international airline until 1991, when those financial problems forced it to shut down operations.