KASS, LINDA ~ BESSIE

(Book for review courtesy of NetGalley)

HEEEERE SHE IIIIISSSS!! MIIISSS AMEEEEERICAAAA!!!! If you belong to the Boomers or Gen X you have crooned that refrain (Usually ironically.)

It is auspicious that I completed Bessie this week, as Miss America will crown a new winner on Saturday, in the pageant's 103rd year. Started as a publicity stunt to extend Atlantic City's summer tourist season, Miss America became a scholarship pageant giving young women a chance for education, personal growth and travel.  From 1954 on the Miss America Pageant was a televised event, held every year, to crown a young woman who best represented the poise, talent, and intelligence American young womanhood had to offer.  But beyond the pageant, Miss America really didn't do much. An occasional TV appearance, an ad for a product whose company sponsored the pageant, but not much else. 

Miss Americas never became famous beyond the crown - save Lee Meriwether (one of Batman's many cat women), Marianne Mobley and Phyllis George.  Arguably the most famous Miss America is Vanessa Williams, the first black woman to wear the crown. But before Vanessa, in 1945, there was Bess Meyerson, the first Jewish woman to win. Bess faced anti-Semitism in the first post World War II competition but held firm to the idea that she represented ALL of America. Bess Meyerson spoke out in favor of integrating the pageant 25 years before the first black contestant competed in 1970. Bess Meyerson faced discrimination and backlash for winning a contest she never actually entered, but represented the dream than in America everyone has an equal chance of success.

Bess Meyerson was the middle daughter of a Russian Jewish father who survived a progrom and fled to America. The Meyersons lived a safe, comfortable existence in a Jewish enclave in the Bronx. Bess' only real dream was to study piano. She attended tuition free Hunter College and graduated with no concrete idea of what her future would be.   A tall, beautiful raven-haired girl Bess began modeling. Her older sister entered her in the Miss New York City Pageant. With a borrowed bathing suit Bess won the title and a slot in the Miss America Pageant. Scholarship available, Bess could live her dream of entering a Music Conservatory to study piano full-time.  When the pageant coordinator warns Bess that as a Jew, she will face anti-Semitism and tells her to change her last name to increase her chance of winning Bess holds firm and refuses to change. After winning the pageant, Bess realizes she has a platform that allows her to be heard. She joins the Anti-Defamation League and does not hesitate to let her views be known, much to the pageant's consternation.

In Bessie, author Linda Kass gives readers a peek under the crown, into the insecurities and shyness of a real young woman. Bess Meyerson constantly felt the lack of her mother's affection, felt awkward and gawky at her full 5 ft 10 in height, felt more comfortable at a piano than speaking to crowds. But forced to find her voice she stayed firm to her identity and her beliefs. Bess Meyerson was a trailblazer, her success lost to history. But Bess Meyerson's inner beauty, her commitment to equality makes her crown shine brighter and should make any young woman stand taller, be braver, and always speak her truth.