Loading...
Welcome
Sign up
Login
Browse Books
Deals
VIP
0
Loading...
Play Sample
Looking for Miss America: A Pageant's 100-Year Quest to Define Womanhood
Written by:
Margot Mifflin
Narrated by:
Nancy Peterson
Unabridged Audiobook
Play Free
Add to Cart - $35.99
Remove from Cart
Give as a gift
Ratings
Book
Narrator
Release Date
August 2020
Duration
9 hours 12 minutes
Summary
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.
Browse By Category
History
>
World
Non-Fiction
>
Social Science
1 book added to cart
Looking for Miss America: A Pagea...
Margot Mifflin
Subtotal
$35.99
View Cart
Continue Browsing
~~title~~
~~carousel-body~~
Back
Next
~~book-title~~
By: ~~author-single-string~~
~~tag-text~~
© Copyright 2011 - 2024 Storytel Audiobooks USA LLC. All Rights Reserved.