Beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman. But for 35 years, one contest in New York City celebrated the everyday working girl.
Each month starting in 1941, a young woman was elected “Miss Subways,” and her face gazed down on transit riders as they rode through the city. Her photo was accompanied by a short bio describing her hopes, dreams and aspirations. The public got to choose the winners – so Miss Subway represented the perfect New York miss. She was also a barometer of changing times.
Miss Subways was one of the first integrated beauty pageants in America. An African-American Miss Subways was selected in 1948 – more than thirty years before there was a black Miss America. By the 1950s, there were Miss Subways who were black, Asian, Jewish, and Hispanic – the faces of New York’s female commuters.
In this episode of the Radio Diaries Podcast, meet the Miss Subways. This episode originally aired on NPR in 2012.
The Greatest Songwriter You’ve Never Heard Of
George Wallace and the Legacy of a Sentence
The View from the 79th Floor
Miss Subways
Last Man on the Mountain – Updated
Busman’s Holiday
Weasel’s Diary, Revisited
When Ground Zero was Radio Row
When Borders Move
Working, Then and Now
Strange Fruit – Voices of a Lynching
The Gospel Ranger
“Halfrican” Revisited
Walter the Seltzerman – It’s Not Easy Being Last
The Long Shadow of Forrest Carter
The Day Nelson Mandela Became Nelson Mandela
Frankie’s Teenage Diary, Revisited
Willie McGee and the Traveling Electric Chair
Teenage Diaries Revisited 1-Hour Special
A Guitar, A Cello, and the Day that Changed Music
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Criminal
Ear Hustle
Song Exploder
The Truth
the memory palace