AIR ART : Luggage Labels from the Golden Age of Flying

In the 1920s and ‘30s, the earliest passenger airlines began competing for business by issuing distinctive luggage labels that marked the traveler both as a person of means and an adventurer. Early air travel, after all, was expensive and not that reliable--there were no schedules as such and it often took a mind-numbing two-dozen stops to get from the Atlantic to the Pacific. But as reliability increased worldwide, a new airline was seemingly born every day (some dying almost as quickly). Luggage labels multiplied, leaving behind the mark of their era--from the almost Edwardian designs of the post-World War I days, through the bold styles of Art Deco, to the “modern” symbols of the ‘40s and ‘50s.

With the advent of the jet, luggage labels--and much of the glamour associated with air travel--seemed to wane. Label collecting, on the other hand, is on the ascent, with collectors paying anywhere from 50 a label to $100 for the most desirable, mint-condition specimens, according to Lynn Johnson and Michael O’Leary in their new book, “En Route: Label Art From the Golden Age of Air Travel” (Chronicle Books, $14.95). O’Leary, an aviation writer, and Johnson, a motion-picture executive, began collecting luggage art in 1989 and have amassed a collection of several thousand, a sampling of which are reprinted here with permission.