#210 Miss America's Secret Past w/ Amy Argetsinger
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 18 October 2021
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Miss America pageant has always had its critics, but the stories of the organization and those who participated in it are far more dynamic than most people recognize. In this episode, Bob & Ben speak with Amy Argetsinger whose new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America explains Miss America's origins, how the pageant both shaped and was shaped by American society, and why it might be okay that the pageant's significance in American culture has faded.
Bonus: Bob calls Miss USA "the confederacy of beauty pageants." Listen to find out why that makes sense!
Amy Argetsinger is an editor for The Washington Post's acclaimed Style section, where she has overseen coverage of media, popular culture, politics and society. Her new book There She Was: The Secret History of Miss America was published by Atria/One Signal Publishers in September of 2021. You can follow Amy on twitter at @AmyArgetsinger.
This episode was edited by Gary Fletcher.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 0:06.4 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 0:07.6 | And this is The Road to Now. |
| 0:10.2 | That's right. |
| 0:10.7 | It is. |
| 0:11.1 | The Road to Now or perhaps today, the runway to now? |
| 0:15.5 | I like that. |
| 0:16.8 | Very good. |
| 0:17.7 | Because today's guest is Amy Argettsinger, whose new book is There She Was, the Secret History of Miss America. |
| 0:25.4 | And I don't know. |
| 0:26.5 | I think this is fantastic. |
| 0:27.8 | We got this query about this book, and I looked into it. |
| 0:31.4 | And Bob and I both, even though this is like we do so many different topics, this is one of those things that Bob and I were both like, yes, yes, we've got to do this |
| 0:39.0 | episode. |
| 0:39.8 | I'm reminded of this every day how connected everything is and how the more you understand |
| 0:47.4 | history, the more you can see how obviously connected events are, even events that |
| 0:53.9 | you would not think were connected to one another. |
| 0:57.8 | You know, like I think it's, you can argue after if you read Amy's book that the Miss America |
| 1:06.1 | pageant somehow gave us the Kardashians. |
| 1:10.3 | It definitely gave us maybe survivor. |
| 1:12.8 | It gave us American Idol, the voice. |
| 1:16.8 | Maybe it even gave us a president at one point. |
... |
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