The Miss Subways Pageant Charted the Highs and Lows of 20th-Century Feminism in New York
The winner of the 1940 Miss Subways beauty contest was Mona Freeman, a fresh-faced teenager who went on to appear in more than 20 films. Its 2017 victor was a 61-year-old performance artist, who achieved some notoriety for a public appearance in a Brooklyn art gallery in which she sat naked on a toilet.
This contest intitially ran from 1941 through 1976 under the auspices of the precursors of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA), and was resuscitated as a pageant by the MTA in 2004 as “Ms. Subways.” This year it has returned again, but it’s nothing to do with the MTA. This incarnation, held at the City Reliquary in late September, was a protest against everything the contest had once stood for: beauty contests, commercialism, the glory of the MTA, even femininity itself. Instead, the organizers welcomed contestants of all genders, encouraged viewers to join the Riders Alliance advocacy group, and…
