Billed as “America’s Second Largest Election,” Liebman Brewery, maker of Rheingold beer, ran the Miss Rheingold competition from 1943 and 1964.This promotional beauty contest followed the post-prohibition trend of enshrining a wholesome woman as the sober purveyor of beer. Miss Rheingold in all of her iterations became emblematic of All-American femininity. This, of course, meant they were all white. Despite the whiteness of the mainstream campaign, Despite the racial homogeneity of their main spokeswomen, women participated in the early rounds of the competition. Liebman Brewery developed a deep relationship with the black community acting as a regional sponsor for the Nat King Cole Show and using black celebrities including Dorothy Dandridge, Sarah Vaughn, and Claudia McNeil in its advertising. The white Miss Rheingold campaign took place in mainstream national media. While some black celebrities were featured in mainstream publications, much of this community-targeted advertising appeared in more regional, ephemeral places. This paper explores the way Liebman’s advertising depicts black femininity in contrast to the way it depicts white femininity.
About the presentersNicholas Alexander Hayes
Nicholas Alexander Hayes is an instructor at DePaul University—The School for New Learning. He is the author of the books NIV: 39 & 27 (BlazeVox Books, 2009) and Between (Atropos Press, 2012). Additional writing has been published in the 1960s Paperback Originals: The Misplaced Heritage (University of Massachusetts) and is forthcoming in Queer in the Choir Room: Sexuality and Gender on Glee (MacFarland).
Terri Griffith
Terri Griffith holds an MFA in writing. Griffith teaches Queer Theory and Gay and Lesbian Studies at Columbia College Chicago and Queer Literature at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her research includes Publishing History, Lesbian Pulp Fiction, and Gender Representation in Popular Culture. She is the author of the novel So Much Better (Green Lantern Press, 2010) and the co-editor of The Essential New Art Examiner (Northern Illinois University Press, 2012).