Bronx/Brooklyn Baby Contests

One hundred years ago today … Baby contests were happening all over NYC. 

For some reason the Brooklyn papers took an interest even in a baby contest in the Bronx.

Brooklyn Citizen, 16 August 2021, p. 7. Newspapers.com.

One such event at Brooklyn’s P.S. 19 accrued some buzz when news went out that a Chinese baby would be an entrant. (We can guess that these were all-white affairs.) 

Brooklyn Times Union, 19 August 2021, p. 2. Newspapers.com.

The baby in question, however, “failed to materialize.”. (“Called Prettiest Baby,” Brooklyn  Daily Eagle, 20 August 2021, p. 2.)

P.S. 19 still exists at South 3rd Street and Keap in Williamsburg.

– Jonathan Goldman, August 19, 2021

TAGS: infants, childhood, Bronx, Asian American, race, ethnicity, school