From the dust jacket- From an author praised for writing “delicious social history” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times) comes a lively account of memorable Miss America contestants, protests, and scandals―and how the pageant, nearing its one hundredth anniversary, serves as an unintended indicator of feminist progress.
Looking for Miss America is a fast-paced narrative history of a curious and contradictory institution. From its start in 1921 as an Atlantic City tourist draw to its current incarnation as a scholarship competition, the pageant has indexed women’s status during periods of social change―the post-suffrage 1920s, the Eisenhower 1950s, the #MeToo era. This ever-changing institution has been shaped by war, evangelism, the rise of television and reality TV, and, significantly, by contestants who confounded expectations.
Spotlighting individuals, from Yolande Betbeze, whose refusal to pose in swimsuits led an angry sponsor to launch the rival Miss USA contest, to the first black winner, Vanessa Williams, who received death threats and was protected by sharpshooters in her hometown parade, Margot Mifflin shows how women made hard bargains even as they used the pageant for economic advancement. The pageant’s history includes, crucially, those it excluded; the notorious Rule Seven, which required contestants to be “of the white race,” was retired in the 1950s, but no women of color were crowned until the 1980s.
In rigorously researched, vibrant chapters that unpack each decade of the pageant, Looking for Miss America examines the heady blend of capitalism, patriotism, class anxiety, and cultural mythology that has fueled this American ritual.
Review- This is a fascinating historical overview of the Miss America contest from its history to its present and what the future may look like. Mifflin does excellent research, she interviews the still living older Miss America’s, and anyone else who was involved in the contest willing to speak to her. She gives an interesting overview of a beauty pageant that does not know what it wants to be. At times it has been both boycotted by the left and the right, sometimes at the same time; the contest has continued. It has both been a step forward for women and a way to hold them back. Winners were just seen as pretty faces and not taken seriously in their careers but it has also helped women to go college without worrying about student debt. Mifflin gives the reader all the sides and the women who were caught in them. I really enjoyed this book and I recommend it.
I give this book a Five out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.
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