Pin attached to the ballet leotard worn by Heather Whitestone McCallum during the 1995 Miss America competition
name: label: user
content: McCallum, Heather Whitestone
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Pin attached to the ballet leotard worn by Heather Whitestone McCallum during the 1995 Miss America competition. The metal pin is a silver colored pair of praying hands with a clear heart attached to the bottom. According to the donor, the pin is a symbol of the providential intervention that helped her secure her title. Via email she related, "A 'stage mom' named Linda Riley Russell at the Miss Alabama Pageant gave me this pin with a mustard seed before I performed my talent competition at the Miss Alabama Pageant during my second year. I won the talent competition at the Miss Alabama Pageant for 3 years in a row. It took me three years before I won the Miss Alabama crown. I continued to wear this mustard seed pin at the Miss America talent competition. I assume you know the famous story from the Bible’s New Testament about the mustard seed. Matthew 17:20 says “and He (Jesus) said to them, 'Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.'
label: Description (Brief)
content: The ballet costume, swimsuit, and hearing aid microphone used by Heather Whitestone McCallum in the Miss America 1995 competition, help illustrate the pageant's history and influence on conversations about gender, disability, adaptive technology, and fashion in American life. McCallum, who is deaf, was the first Miss America titleholder with a disability. She was criticized by some in the Deaf community for her reliance on her hearing aid, lip reading, and speaking in vocal English rather than American Sign Language. Whitestone made advocacy for the deaf community her platform during her reign and has continued to work as a motivational speaker and author in the years afterward.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2021.0164.02.1
label: accession number
content: 2021.0164
label: catalog number
content: 2021.0164.02.1
objectType: label: Object Name
content: pin
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: glass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: mustard seed (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 in x 1 1/2 in x 1/8 in; 12.7 cm x 3.81 cm x .3175 cm