The September Vintage Twirler of the Month was inspired by the Manzanar majorettes. Here is an excerpt from my August 13, 2023 post, “Japanese Internment Camps Featured Baton Twirling Lessons.” The sticker will be mailed to paid subscribers of the Vintage Twirler Substack before the end of...
Long before Carolyn Brown Shrewsbury (circa 1942-) began teaching generations of young gymnasts, she was the youngster onstage doing the things that seemed nearly impossible. Brown, who grew up in Maryland, began performing as a child in the 1950s. Photographs from her early career show an act...
Girl in the Moon was a Wisconsin Majorette For more than a century, Miller High Life’s “Girl in the Moon” has been one of America’s most recognizable advertising icons. First introduced in 1907, the image of a young woman seated on a crescent moon with a bottle of Miller High Life became...
In the spring of 1949, 17-year-old Lorna Mae Nifong left her family’s 335-acre farm in Bourbon, Indiana, for a job most teenage twirlers could only dream about. She had never set foot on a train and was still working toward her high school diploma, but her destination was Sarasota, Florida, the...
Mary Jean Petersen, 17, Dwight, Illinois, was named Miss Majorette of America 1948 by Drum Major Magazine. She was the second twirler ever bestowed with the honor.
Edward Frye, a circus fan from Minnesota and Kitty Clark, August 1941, Madison, Wisconsin (Source: Milner Library, ISU) This photo has been enhanced with AI tools and software. See original below. During the late 1930s and throughout the 1940s, Katherine “Kitty” Clark (1920-1993) was...
The_Camden News, April 26, 1974 Born in 1927, James Percy “J.P. (Pee Wee)” Crumpler began twirling in 1937 and quickly became one of the most remarkable young drum majors in the South. At just 12 years of age, he was leading the Camden High School Panther Band under the direction of...
Old Forge’s First Miss Devilette Has Passed Away Maryann Beseda Brigido, the original “Miss Devilette” of Old Forge High School, Pennsylvani, has passed away at the age of 87. Her death marks the loss of the first performer to hold a title that has come to define Friday night...
Xernona and Xenobia Brewster, Late 1940s | Muskogee, Oklahoma Long before one of them became a nationally honored civil rights icon with a bronze statue in downtown Atlanta, identical twins Xernona and Xenobia Brewster were known in Oklahoma as “The Brewster Twins,” a polished majorette act from...
The Neon Majorette — The iconic sign as it originally appeared at the Campus Drive-In Theatre in San Diego. Marion Caster Baker was a majorette for the Los Angeles Rams in 1947. She is also suspected to be the inspiration and model for the famous neon majorette sign installed in 1948 near San...
British-German fine art photographer Julia Fullerton-Batten has included a baton twirler-inspired scene in her new photographic series The Art of Hollywood, a project built around authentic hand-painted Hollywood backdrops once used in classic motion pictures. The image, titled “Showgirl,”...
University of Washington majorette and national champion with roots in Tacoma Elks Band Gloria Ellexson emerged from Tacoma, Washington, as one of the Pacific Northwest’s standout majorettes in the 1940s, with newspaper and archival references placing her in public performances from at least 1940...
