Meet Miss Subways
Radio Diaries
Radio Diaries & Radiotopia
4.6 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 30 March 2023
⏱️ 9 minutes
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Summary
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.
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| 0:00.0 | Radiotopia. |
| 0:04.0 | From PRX. |
| 0:05.0 | From PRX's Radiotopia, this is Radio Diaries. I'm Joe Richmond. |
| 0:12.0 | In 1941, the most famous subway rider in New York City was a 14-year-old girl named Mona Freeman. |
| 0:19.0 | A so-called beauty authority, John Robert Powers, who ran a modeling agency, |
| 0:23.3 | crowned her the city's first Miss Subways and plastered her photo on the IRT, BMT, and I&D lines. Her |
| 0:30.2 | placard included a short bio. Vivacious Mona Freeman writes for her school paper, it said. She's |
| 0:36.1 | interested in school dramatics. Broadway |
| 0:38.1 | and Hollywood, please note. By the way, before she won the Miss Subway's crown, Mona |
| 0:42.4 | had never even been on the subway. Mona Freeman was the first Miss Subways, but not the last. |
| 0:48.3 | Over the next 35 years, that honor went to hundreds of New York women. And it became a democratic |
| 0:53.3 | process. New Yorkers got to vote for the winners by sending New York women. And it became a democratic process. |
| 0:54.5 | New Yorkers got to vote for the winners by sending in postcards. |
| 0:58.1 | And soon, Miss Subways began to reflect the many different faces of the city's female commuters. |
| 1:03.0 | An African American Miss Subways was selected in 1948, more than 30 years before there was a black |
| 1:07.7 | Miss America. |
| 1:08.7 | And by the 1950s, they were Miss Subways who were Asian, Jewish, Hispanic, white, and black. |
| 1:14.7 | Most beauty pageants promote the fantasy of the ideal woman, but this contest celebrated something |
| 1:19.5 | different, the everyday working girl. |
| 1:22.3 | Today in the podcast, Miss Subways. |
| 1:36.3 | Every month, some lucky little New York Miss is chosen from the thousands of girls who ride the subways. |
| 1:37.3 | She's got to be brilliant, beautiful, talented, just an average girl. |
... |
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