It was in 1854 when showman P.T. Barnum held the first beauty pageant. Unfortunately, for him, the public protested and closed his pageant down. There have been traces of beauty pageants being held way before that time.
In 1839 a beauty pageant was held during the Eglinton Tournament and was organized by Archibald Montgomerie. The winner was Georgiana Seymour, Duchess of Somerset and was then proclaimed as the "Queen of Beauty". Now we have countless beauty contests each year but there was something about the beauty contests that were held before that is missing today, something scary.
During the Second World War, every country had its ways of keeping the troops and war workers motivated. From female celebrities performing on stage or arranging pageants like this, the purpose was to keep spirits up and let everyone have fun. This picture was taken in 1942 and these ladies helped the war effort.
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Yes, you heard that right! Somewhere around the 1970s, there was a pageant in America that required women to dress up like vampires! Looks like the obsession with vampires started way before ‘Twilight’ created the craze. As the picture shows, the women are dressed in dark colors and look quite gothic.
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Yes, those are women dressed as lobsters. These are the women who won the prize in Atlantic City’s famous Beauty Pageant Parade held on Atlantic City Boardwalk. As the caption below says, these women are posing with ‘Lobster King’ Harry Hockney. They are probably waitresses at his restaurants. This is like a lobster-themed version of ‘Hooters’.
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Have you ever thought that there could be a beauty pageant held for women, but related to public transport? Well around the 1960s, there was something called the ‘Miss Subways’ pageant. We don’t know what role the subways had to play but as the picture shows, the pageant is advertised on the subway! People back then sure had a lot of pageants!
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This picture captures the essence of this competition. This was from the 1930s. This pageant was arranged for women’s ankles! No other body part was exposed and the winner was declared only on the basis of the ankle. Participants sat behind this covering and only their ankles were exposed.
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It looks like the obsession with women’s ankles was at a high in the 1930s. This picture is from 1933 and this is the Prettiest Ankle Contest. The idea is similar to the previous one and judges choose the prettiest ankle based on the ankle only. The rest of the body is covered.
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This picture is from 1949 and the contest is to judge legs. The women are made to wear masks so that the judges judge them only on the basis of their legs. All we can say is back then too, people were just as obsessed with beauty and objectifying women as today.
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This may look funny and scary but it is a still from a beauty contest in the 1950s. Women are wearing masks again so that the judgment is based only on the legs and not the face. The obsession with legs has passed on to this generation as well, just like every other generation before it.
Talking about objectifying women, here is another example. People are still obsessed with women’s ‘backs’ and even in 1930, as this picture shows, ‘backs’ were important. We don’t know what scientific experiment is going on and what that man is trying to measure to do with that machine, but we are glad that these things don’t happen anymore.
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This picture is taken around 1995 and we just want to know who came up with this. A beauty contest was held to declare someone ‘Sausage Queen’? We wonder why someone would want to be called Sausage Queen and pose with sausages unless they were getting a free supply of sausages for their whole lives!
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Nowadays people use ‘curvy’ or ‘plus-size’, but back then there was no sugar-coating things. As the name suggests, this was a pageant around the 1960s, specifically for more full women! Most of these women look pretty average sized and none of them look ‘fat’. But the criteria for 'fat' back then must have been different.
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Let’s just say that the 1930s were weird. Don’t get scared by looking at this picture. This is actually a pageant called Miss Lovely Eyes in 1930. The women are made to wear masks so that only their eyes are exposed, which is the criteria for judgment. This looks like a still from a horror movie.
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If you have watched ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ then you might have an idea what this is about. This is from 1952. Several women go to a luxury holiday camp and one of the activities there is this beauty pageant. The women are made to wear masks so that their figures can be judged only on the basis of their figures.
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People are still obsessed with beach bodies and nothing much has changed in the last century or so. Here is a picture from a pageant judging women in their beachwear. They are wearing masks so that only their bodies factor into the comparison. The unrealistic standards of beauty and perfect bodies that we are still struggling to break started from here, we suppose.
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Looks like we found the inspiration for Sausage Queen! This picture is from 1951, and the winner of the pageant is declared Donut Queen! We wonder why these foods needed a human queen in the first place but if lobsters got represented, then why shouldn’t donuts and sausages?
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