Winner of the Popular Culture Association’s Emily Toth Best Book in Women’s Studies Award 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, now in its one hundredth year, 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.

How American is Miss America? For Susan Supernaw, a Muscogee (Creek) and Munsee Native American, the question wasn't just academic. Throughout a childhood clouded by poverty, alcoholism, abuse, and a physical disability, Supernaw sought escape in school and dance and the Native American Church. She became a presidential scholar, won a scholarship to college, and was crowned Miss Oklahoma in 1971. Supernaw might not have won the Miss America pageant that year, but she did call attention to the Native peoples living largely invisible lives throughout their own American land. And she did at long last earn her Native American name. Chronicling a quest to escape poverty and find meaning, Supernaw's story is revealing, humorous, and deeply moving. Muscogee Daughter is the story of finding a Native American identity among the distractions and difficulties of American life and of discerning an identity among competing notions of what it is to be a woman, a Native American, and a citizen of the world.

Glamour of the Gods is a survey of Hollywood portraiture from the industry's golden age, a period lasting from 1920 to 1960. All the photographs were selected from the astonishing archive of the John Kobal Foundation in London.

A fresh exploration of American feminist history told through the lens of the beauty pageant world. Many predicted that pageants would disappear by the 21st century. Yet they are thriving. America’s most enduring contest, Miss America, celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2020. Why do they persist? In Here She Is, Hilary Levey Friedman reveals the surprising ways pageants have been an empowering feminist tradition. She traces the role of pageants in many of the feminist movement’s signature achievements, including bringing women into the public sphere, helping them become leaders in business and politics, providing increased educational opportunities, and giving them a voice in the age of #MeToo. Using her unique perspective as a NOW state president, daughter to Miss America 1970, sometimes pageant judge, and scholar, Friedman explores how pageants became so deeply embedded in American life from their origins as a P.T. Barnum spectacle at the birth of the suffrage movement, through Miss Universe’s bathing beauties to the talent- and achievement-based competitions of today. She looks at how pageantry has morphed into culture everywhere from The Bachelor and RuPaul’s Drag Race to cheer and specialized contests like those for children, Indigenous women, and contestants with disabilities. Friedman also acknowledges the damaging and unrealistic expectations pageants place on women in society and discusses the controversies, including Miss America’s ableist and racist history, Trump’s ownership of the Miss Universe Organization, and the death of child pageant-winner JonBenét Ramsey. Presenting a more complex narrative than what’s been previously portrayed, Here She Is shows that as American women continue to evolve, so too will beauty pageants.

A daring and difficult helicopter rescue took her to the hospital and started her on a journey of new understandings about life. What Lankard teaches us through her experiences is that even in the darkest times, there are gifts that come to us to help us endure. With friends and family to support us and faith to sustain us, even in sorrow and pain we can find comfort if we open our eyes to see it and our hearts to feel it.

On the outside, my life appeared smooth and successful. I had been blessed with a loving family, a great education, And The title of Miss America at an early age. But my road held big bumps—professionally and personally. I seemed stuck on a roller coaster of highs and lows with an inner life that was just as unpredictable. When I made the decision to have a disciplined pattern of time with God, my faith experience grew wide and deep. May this book of devotionals bless all of us in our spiritual journey. Some stories are mine; others are from friends: Lolly Anderson, Lisa Boone, Reverend Linda Brinkworth, Linda Cavanaugh, Betty Catching, Dr. Susan Chambers, Coach Sherri Coale, Kay Dudley, Nancy Ellis, Marcy Gardenhire, Prudy Gorrell, Barbara Green, Dr. Lori Hansen, Deliliah Bernard Hayes, Justice Yvonne Kauger, First Lady Cathy Keating, Charlotte Lankard, Donna Lawrence, Judy Love, Robin Marsh, Brenda McDaniel, LaDonna Meinders, Dr. Debra Mitchell, Kay Murcer, First Lady Donna Nigh, Bobbie Roe, Jane Thompson, Karen Waddell.