EAN: 9781640094901

LOOKING FOR MISS AMERICA - MARGOT MIFFLIN KARTO...

Winner of the Popular Culture Association s Emily Toth Best Book in Women s Studies AwardFrom
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  now in its one hundredth year  serves as an unintended indicator of feminist
progressLooking 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.

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