Miss Treasury Department

Shown is Helen G. Sweeney who won the title of Miss Washington D.C. back in 1924. But she also served, more specifically, as Miss Treasury Department.

Apparently young women were chosen to represent all the various offices of the federal government. So in addition to Miss Treasury Department there was:

• Miss Bureau of Standards (Betty Grace Tucker)
• Miss Veterans Bureau (Elsie L. Schulze)
• Miss Commerce (Estelle Meisenheimer)
• Miss Navy (Etelka Kearney)
• Miss State Department (Adeline Shuler)
• Miss Post Office (Ellen S. Waller)
• Miss Department of Justice (Helen T. Gallagher)
• Miss Civil Service (Irma Beaver)
• Miss Labor (Margaret McKinley)
• Miss Bureau of Engraving (Elizabeth Thompson)
• Miss War Department (Pearl B. Henry)
• Miss Government Printing Office (Evelen M. Smith)
• Miss Agriculture (Jewell Sager)
• Miss Interior (Minnie Jean)
• Miss Federation (Margaret M. Mattare)
• Miss Interstate Commerce (Sarah M. Boyle)
• Miss U.S. Employee's Compensation Commission (Edith S. Webb)

Source: The Washington Post, Dec. 1, 1924

Posted By: Alex - Sat Jun 22, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Government, 1920s

Miss Typical

I guess it's some kind of achievement to be judged the most entirely average, but still, I don't think "Miss Typical" pageants are often held nowadays. They seem to belong to an age when conformity was thought to be more of a virtue. Rachel Reber here won "Miss Typical Freshman Coed" title back in 1941.



Marilyn Charleston was judged Miss Typical Teen of Nevada:

Reno Gazette Journal - Sep 3, 1948

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jun 18, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, 1940s

Trevor Winkfield

I rather like the weird paintings of Trevor Winkfield. Do you?

Posted By: Paul - Sun May 19, 2013 - Comments (6)
Category: Art, Avant Garde, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Eccentrics

Kara Dunne:  Living Paper Doll

The artist's homepage.

Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 23, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Art, Performance Art, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Toys

Lena the Hyena:  (Anti-) Beauty Contest Winner

Most fans of comics, or Mad magazine, or pop culture in general know about Basil Wolverton and his famous creation, Lena the Hyena. (I put one of Wolverton's great recent books in the sidebar a little while ago.)

But did you know that Lena was the result of a contest sponsored by Al Capp for his Li'l Abner newspaper strip? She took the prize from several other contenders for ugliness.

See who she beat out here.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 18, 2013 - Comments (4)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Contests, Races and Other Competitions, Comics, 1940s

The Fire Treatment

Would you set yourself on fire for beauty? According to The Inquisitr, the Fire Treatment (aka Huǒ liáo) is the hot new thing in China:

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 08, 2013 - Comments (12)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Baths, Showers and Other Cleansing Methods

Leggy Dolls

Somehow, Barbie doesn't seem so anatomically impossible anymore.

More info here.

More pics here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 25, 2013 - Comments (2)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Body Modifications, Freaks, Oddities, Quirks of Nature, Toys, 1970s

Life Imitates THE FLY

Full article here.

Posted By: Paul - Fri Jan 18, 2013 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Health, Insects and Spiders, Science, 1950s

Fluxion

Let me know at which point you bail from this piece. But if you love it instead, be prepared to pay a high price for each CD--for some unfathomable reason.

More about the musician.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jan 12, 2013 - Comments (13)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Music, Avant Garde, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults

Tales of Dark:  Of Grandiose Fevers and Passion Arcane

If H. P. Lovecraft were alive today, sixteen years old and a Goth, this is the song he would have written. The only things missing are the word "eldritch" and some tentacles.

More on the band here.

Reach the ancient heart of the stygian obscurity
Wherein all the names of mine are written
In pits profound,where festered dreams sigh
And longings scorched seek reason to return.
Admire the flame flowered mansions arcane
The sulfurous secrets gowned in rapture profane
Fear not the fire of all-knowing wisdom
Furiously burning with such ravishing splendour.

On the wings of my most fervent passion
Which the fools dare name blasfemia
To thee I have returned from the heart-dead sunworms domain
A coffin-shaped lair they have woven around me
For I've pledged no allegiance
To their fabulous sacred theories
Those spurious servants of a crownless king
Who holds their cross in vain.

No Phoenix phenomenon shall their fall contain!
Leave their carcasses scattered and slain!

And now I'm visualised
To blind-faithed eyes
Lofty and proud, to be recognized.
As the mourning-scented bloodstorm winds
Of their final downfall blow
Like a nightclad werewolf upon the moonlit glade
I shall hunt them down in the snow.

...and the frostbitten ground
now consumes their wretched gore
My victorious hiss fulfills the oceans ethereal
And the stars gleam nameless above
As shadows call forth the seas of Cthulhu
Be wide awake my dearest
Of my fiery necromantic kiss!

Thine arms soothing around me enfold
To cease my yearning cursed
The sweetest witchcraft thy lips do hold
Can only quench my thirst.

'Neath the enchantingly blazing corona of night
drown thy desire into mine!
With all the senses cast to a feverous grandeur
In the sins of the flesh we entwine.

Eternally...We entwine...

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 23, 2012 - Comments (6)
Category: Armageddon and Apocalypses, Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Dreams and Nightmares, Evil, Goths, Music, Noises and Other Public Disturbances of the Peace, Europe, Cacophony, Dissonance, White Noise and Other Sonic Assaults