Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-197) and index.

Hoping to extend the summer tourism season, a group of Atlantic City businessmen hatched the idea of a late September "Fall Frolic" in 1920. The following year, several East Coast newspapers featured a photographic beauty contest, sending the winners to the Fall Frolic for the final round of judging. The Miss America Pageant evolved from this contest to become the longest-running beauty pageant in the world. While some see the competition as a hokey vestige of another era, many remain enthralled by the annual event. And whether you love it or hate it, no one can deny the impact the contest has had on American popular culture--indeed, one can draw a direct line from the pageant to the myriad "reality" programs that now dominate network television. The Miss America Pageant itself has provided a fascinating glimpse into how American standards of femininity have been defined, projected, maintained, and challenged over the course of the twentieth century and into the current one. At various times, it has been praised as a positive tole model for young American women, protested by feminists as degrading to women, and shamed by scandals, such as the one caused by the Penthouse photos of Vanessa L. Williams in 1984. In the first interdisciplinary anthology to examine the uniquely American event, scholars defend, critique, and reflect on the pageant, grappling with themes such as beauty, race, the body, identify, kitsch, and consumerism.

SACFinal081324