No More Miss America! How Protesting the 1968 Pageant Changed a Nation

FAIN: FZ-280263-21

Micki McElya
University of Connecticut (Storrs, CT 06269-9000)

Writing a narrative history of the 1968 Miss America pageant, a turning point in the women's movement. 

No More Miss America! How Protesting the 1968 Pageant Changed a Nation is a character-driven work of narrative history examining beauty, feminism, race, women’s rights, and politics in the twentieth-century U.S. through the events of the 1968 Miss America Pageant. Famously protested by women’s liberation activists, Miss America was also challenged that year by the first-ever Miss Black America Pageant, held on the same day and just a few blocks away in Atlantic City. No More Miss America! spotlights people and events often relegated to the margins of political history and popular accounts of the period and demonstrates the transformative effect of putting diverse women’s voices at the center of inquiry. It is under contract with Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.