Pan Am’s status as a cultural icon persists nearly three decades after the airline collapsed under crushing debt. There are Pan Am items for sale on eBay, including travel bags, cutlery and captain’s wings. It continues to be memorialized in television, movies and documentaries. The Pan Am Historical Foundation offers travel tours to Morocco, Iran and Egypt.

Ms. Williams said half the visits to the university’s special collections libraries, where the Pan Am catalog is housed, were from people interested in the airline.

“The brand, at one point, was the biggest in the world,” she said.

Pan Am flew its first international flight in October 1927, and went on to become the most recognizable American airline, known for elegant service, dashing pilots and adventurous travel. Earlier that year, Pan Am’s founder, Juan T. Trippe, had merged three airlines to form the company after receiving a contract from the United States Postal Service to deliver mail between Key West, Fla., and Havana. Pan Am delivered 250 pounds of mail to Cuba on its first trip. Within a year, it would establish regular service to the island nation.