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Looking for Miss America : a pageant's 100-year quest to define womanhood  Cover Image Book Book

Looking for Miss America : a pageant's 100-year quest to define womanhood / Margot Mifflin.

Summary:

"Looking for Miss America is a fast-paced narrative history of the Miss America pageant from its start as a shocking east coast bathing-beauty revue in 1921 to its recent rebirth as a swimsuit-free "scholarship competition." It introduces the dreamers and dissidents, hustlers and heroines who won; the celebrities, including Norman Rockwell, Joan Crawford, and Rod McKuen, who judged; and the masterminds behind it, like director Lenora Slaughter, who "picked the pageant up by its bathing suit straps and put it down in an evening gown" in the 1930s, transforming it from a seaside skin show into a national institution. Approaching its 100th anniversary, the pageant has survived scandal, protests, mockery, and the mutiny of a queen who got cold feet and skipped town the night she won. One winner called Miss America "the kind of girl who would go into a bar and order orange juice in a loud voice"; another claimed "she's not a real person. She's something that happens every year." Looking for Miss America breaks down the blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety and cultural mythology that has fueled the pageant, the racial biases it has perpetuated, and the social mobility it has enabled"-- Provided by publisher.

Record details

  • ISBN: 9781640092235 (hardcover)
  • Physical Description: 310 pages : illustrations (some colour) ; 24 cm
  • Edition: First hardcover edition.
  • Publisher: Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2020.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:
Includes bibliographical references.
Formatted Contents Note:
Introduction. American beauties -- Bathing beauties -- Dreamers -- Seekers -- Achievers -- Resisters -- Trailblazers -- Iconoclasts -- Believers -- Survivors.
Subject: Miss America Pageant > History.
Beauty contests > United States > History.

Available copies

  • 1 of 1 copy available at Tsuga Consortium.

Holds

  • 0 current holds with 1 total copy.
Show All Copies
Location Call Number / Copy Notes Barcode Shelving Location Status Due Date
Stroud Branch 791.66 Mif 31681010215267 NONFIC Available -


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