Queen of the Picket Line

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“Queen of the Picket Line”: Beauty Contests in the Post – World War II Canadian Labor Movement, 1945 –1970 Joan Sangster Beauty contests were multiplying at a furious pace in post–World War II Canada, claimed outspoken, cranky journalist Gordon Sinclair: every conceivable community was crowning their “Miss Rice Lake Muskrat, Miss Welland Canal and Miss Safety of the Highways.” Known more as a cynic than a feminist, Sinclair designated these contests as little more than “parades of girl meat on the hoof,”1 yet his misgivings were not shared by other writers,2 and certainly not by the labor movement, for beauty contests also proliferated in the ranks of labor. While similar events had been held in previous years, sponsored by employers, or during labor festivals,3 they became better advertised, more elaborate, and more numerous in the post–World War II period. So too did representations of women’s sexualized bodies in the labor press.4 The question is why. I thank Andrée Lévesque for her comments and for sharing information on the Montreal midinettes, Todd McCallum and Katherine McKenna for providing venues for me to discuss this research, and Christina Simmons and Bryan Palmer for commenting on previous versions of this article. . Gordon Sinclair, “Beauty Contests Are the Bunk,” Maclean’s Magazine, October , , – . . James McHardy, “Something New Has Been Added to Beauty Contest Criteria,” Saturday Night, September , , . . Craig Heron and Steven Penfold, The Workers’ Festival: A History of Labour Day in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ), – . For employer-sponsored contests see David Sobel and Susan Meurer, Working at Inglis: The Life and Death of a Canadian Factory (Toronto: James Lorimer, ), – , and for department stores, Donica Belisle, “A Labour Force for the Consumer Century: Commodi cation in Canada’s Largest Department Stores,” Labour/Le

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