Miss America Crown
date: label: Date made
content: 1951
notes: label: Description
content: 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.
label: Description
content: 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.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: related event
content: Miss America Pageant
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
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content: Popular Entertainment
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content: Clothing & Accessories
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content: Cultures & Communities
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content: National Treasures exhibit
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2005.0078.01
label: accession number
content: 2005.0078
label: catalog number
content: 2005.0078.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: crown
label: Object Name
content: crown, worn by Yolande B.Betbee (Fox) , Miss America 1951
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: copper alloy (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: rhinestones (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 3/4 in x 6 in x 7 1/2 in; 9.525 cm x 15.24 cm x 19.05 cm