Yolande Betbeze's Miss America Crown

Object Details

Description:

Yolande Betbeze, "the Basque spitfire," surprised Atlantic City and the nation in 1951 when she was named Miss America. The former Miss Alabama beat out over forty fair-haired, fair-skinned state champions with her dramatic singing performance and her undeniable Iberian beauty. Of Basque heritage, Betbeze tested the limits of a system that in the 1950s was still basing its standards on an ethnically and racially narrow definition of feminine beauty.

Betbeze would go on to continue testing the Miss America institution with her refusal to parade in a bathing suit and, after her reign, with her advocacy of women's and minority rights, her political activism, and ultimately her generous donation of this, her original 1951 crown, to the Smithsonian Institution in 2005.

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Date made:

1951

ID Number:

2005.0078.01

accession number:

2005.0078

catalog number:

2005.0078.01

Related Publication:

National Museum of American History. Treasures of American History online exhibition

Related Web Publication:

http://americanhistory.si.edu/treasures

related event:

Miss America Pageant

Physical Description:

glass (overall material)

copper alloy (overall material)

metal (overall material)

rhinestones (overall material)

Measurements:

overall: 3 3/4 in x 6 in x 7 1/2 in; 9.525 cm x 15.24 cm x 19.05 cm

Data Source:

National Museum of American History

Object Name:

crown

crown, worn by Yolande B.Betbee (Fox) , Miss America 1951