Jamaica's Ten Type Beauty Contest
Since scholarship on the Ten Type Beauty Contest is limited, a large portion of the details on the pageant was taken from research conducted by Dr. Rochelle Rowe in her book, “Imagining Caribbean Womanhood: Race, Nation & Beauty Competitions, 1929-1970” .
In 1955, Jamaica held the “Ten Type Beauty Contest” which was designed to showcase the diversity of Jamaica. The first of its kind, it was held under the theme: “Every lassie has an equal chance”. The beauty contest thus ended with ten separate beauty queens: Miss Ebony (A Jamaican girl of black complexion), Miss Mahogany (A Jamaican Girl of Cocoa-brown Complexion), Miss Satinwood (A Jamaican Girl of Coffee-and-Milk Complexion), Miss Golden Apple (A Jamaican Girl of Peaches-and-Cream Complexion), Miss Apple Blossom (A Jamaican Girl of European Parentage), Miss Pomegranate (A Jamaican girl of White-Mediterranean Parentage), Miss Sandalwood (A Jamaican Girl of Pure Indian Parentage), Miss Lotus (A Jamaican Girl of Pure Chinese Parentage), Miss Jasmine (A Jamaican Girl of Part Chinese Parentage) and Miss Allspice (A Jamaican Girl of Part Indian Parentage). The local reception was positive and the international fanfare projected the idea of Jamaica been a racial paradise, where racism does not exist; and the country having the ability to convert racists. So positive was the reception of Ten Type to the Jamaica brand, that the beauty competition would go on to be one of the biggest influences in shaping the nation's new national motto: "Out of Many, One People"
Additional Knowledge
BOOKS
Imagining Caribbean Womanhood, Race, Nation and Beauty Competitions, 1929–70 by Rochelle Rowe
Modern Blackness: Nationalism, Globalisation, and the Politics of Culture in Jamaica by Deborah Thomas
People and Tourism: Issues and Attitudes in the Jamaican Hospitality Industry Paperback by Hopeton Dunn and Leith Dunn
The Confounding Island: Jamaica and the Postcolonial Predicament by Orlando Patterson
To Hell with Paradise: A History of the Jamaican Tourist Industry by Frank Taylor
Women and Tourist Work in Jamaica: Seven Miles of Sandy Beach by Augusta Lynn Bolles
ACADEMIC PAPERS
Cultural Conundrums: Gender, Race, Nation, and the Making of Caribbean Cultural Politics by Natasha Barnes
Face of the Nation: Race, Nationalisms, and Identities in Jamaican Beauty Pageants by Natasha Barnes
How We Celebrated Our First Independence: A Personal Recollection by Theodore Sealy
Glorifying the Jamaican Girl”: The “Ten Types – One People” Beauty Contest, Racialized Femininities, and Jamaican Nationalism by Rochelle Rowe
Racial Hierarchy and the Elevation of Brownness in Creole Nationalism by Maziki Thame
Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture by Angelique V. Nixon
Theorising Gender Systems and the Project of Modernity in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean by Eudine Barritea
The ‘Jamaica 300’ Celebrations of 1955: Commemoration In A Colonial Polity by Howard Johnson
Tourism And Popular Perceptions: Mapping Jamaican Attitudes by Hopeton S. Dunn And Leith L. Dunn
The Moyne Commission and The Jamaican Left by John Gaffar La Guerre
MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHIES
Falmouth of My Childhood by Yolanda N. Mittoo