JF Ptak Science Books LLC  Post 416

It isn’t often that you run across the sobriquet of “Queen of the Nudists”, as was the case with Ruth Cubitt, but here it is, in the handbook of the Official Souvenir of the San Diego International Exposition for 1936.  The mention of Ms. Cubitt (“an artist at heart”) is tucked away towards the end of the handbook, right after the entry for the new Globe Theatre, in the description of Zoro Gardens.  We are told that “the famous Nudist Colony” is “near the east gate if the Exposition” and (oddly put) “in a rarely beautiful setting [sic]” and,  I’m guessing, that it was actually outside the fairgrounds.  I’m unsure of the connection between the nudists and the exposition, but at th every least the description was added for titilation purposes. 

A few years earlier and half-way across the country in Chicago was the famous Century of Progress Exposition (1933-1934). (I have written about a pamphlet pointing out the not-so-progressive aspect of the celebration HERE.).  In

this official program are listed all of the groups of exhibitions,
including The Midway (pictured here), showing different sorts of rides
and thrills.  For some reason at the center of it all is a pavilion
called “Miss America”, featuring a weird/creepy, Barbie-like,
completely nude and depilated “Miss America”.  Why this figure was on
display is unknown, the reasons puzzling and, with my eyes,
incomprehensible–she expresses a little bit of modesty with one hand 
while the other hangs limply at her side.  Why the fundamental
full-frontal nudity was necessary, I don’t know.