Vintage Beauty Queens & All Their Weirdness
Ah, the good ol’ days of beauty pageants. Once a great time-honored American tradition, today, beauty contests have lost their luster. It’s easy to see why.
But there was a time not so long ago when the crowning of beauty queens reigned supreme. Why? So snappy-dressed businessmen could sell stuff. Such a novel idea, huh?– Using scantily clad young women to hock every thing from hot dogs to lube jobs to putting a happy, sexy face on atomic bombs.
Yet today, it is fun in a bizarre kind of way to look back at these strangle photos and wonder what ever happened to Miss Junior Civitan Fruit Cake or Miss Flipper. And at the same time, hope that Donald Trump can finally make a buck as proprietor of today’s Miss America pageant.
Miss I-75 U.S.A… A very long interstate. An equally long pageant.
Miss Earth, 1952.
1968’s Miss Junior Civitan Fruit Cake.
She needs no introduction…
An entry from London England– The Miss Fat and Beautiful Contest, circa 1960. The winner was dubbed “Britain’s Most Glamorous Fatty.”
Miami Vice: 1930s Beauty pageant contestants in Miami sporting NRA tats.
Miss Archive, 1968. Librarians, perhaps?
What a catch! Miss Tarpon Round Up, 1962
Miss Psywar contestants from the state of Washington in the 1940s. It was most likely during WW II. Why? because “Psywar” is short for Psychological Warfare.
Meat Meet Ann Coffee Harrison, 1968’s Miss Nebraska Stock Grower.
At the South Boston, Virginia beauty pageant at the National Tobacco Festival, contestants stand naked in a large hickory barrel. Date unknown.
Space Queen in the early 1950s.
Not the KKK, but the Miss Lovely Eyes Pageant in the 1930s.
The Eyes Have It: Mis Idaho Potato, 1935.
Sponsored by Hebrew National– It’s the Frankfuter Queen of 1952. Oh, ya just gotta love how she holds a wiener!
Miss Flipper, I’m guessing the mid 1970s?
Donut Queen from the 1950s. And what the world wanted to know was how she could sit on all those donuts without squashing them.
Lobster King Harry Hackney with his Lobster Waitresses, who won the prize in Atlantic City’s famous beauty pageant parade, date unknown.
Why should Atlantic City have all the fun? These bathing beauties protested in Venice, California over New Jersey’s monopoly of the pageant business.
Standing in at 6’ 0”, Miss Tall San Fernando Valley, 1970 who later went on to win Miss Tall Universe. Not familiar with the Miss Tall Universe Pageant? That’s probably because it changed it’s name to Miss Tall International in 1974.
Va-va-va-BOOM! It’s Miss Atomic Bomb, 1950.
1970’s Miss Sertoma Follies, Clearwater Florida.
Miss Cigar Queen contestants in 1937.
Miss Industry circa 1960. But why the sack of coins and the creepy dudes?
Finally, who needs a sanctioning body or Donald Trump to hold a top-notch beauty pageant? In 1951, the Muller Bros., an Oldsmobile-Firestone Tire- Car Wash-Café- Body Shop-Home Appliance- Auto Supply Dealer in Los Angeles, California held a competition in honor of their 3,000,000,000th car wash. The field of beauties from queens that represented each department of their mega-complex known as “The Landing”. Here’s a sampling of photos of the contest as documented by Life Magazine. (source: Along for the Ride)
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