Pic Authentically Reveals Fifties 'Miss Atomic Bomb' Magnificence Queen?

On Might 7, 2024, the official Fb web page of the Nationwide Historic Publications and Data Fee (NHPRC) made a post that included a black-and-white picture of a blonde lady posing in a showering swimsuit or leotard embellished with what seems to be a mushroom cloud manufactured from cotton.

The caption of the put up reads, 

Miss Atomic Bomb, the icon of the Nationwide Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas. Positioned close to the Nevada check website, Las Vegas was in direct line to the open air exams. Civilian nonchalance was important in securing acceptance of the potential dangers.

The Nationwide Atomic Testing Museum is a part of the Listing of Historic Data Organizations. The listing consists of data on 75 Nevada repositories, together with a hyperlink to every repository’s house web page. The listing was up to date as a part of NHPRC’s grant to the Nevada State Historic Data Advisory Board.

The Nevada SHRAB additionally promoted archives by way of Archives Month, awarded archival schooling scholarships, and collaborated with a guide to steer a state-wide wants evaluation survey and report and developed a five-year strategic plan.

You possibly can learn extra about their work at https://nsla.nv.gov/state-historical-records-advisory-board

The picture, which the NHPRC recognized solely as “Miss Atomic Bomb, the icon of the Nationwide Atomic Testing Museum, Las Vegas,” in its Fb put up, has additionally appeared on plenty of different social media websites together with X and Reddit, the place it has made a number of appearances in subreddits comparable to r/OldSchoolRidiculous and r/HistoryPorn since at the least 2016. A few of these posts declare the lady was the winner of a “Miss Atomic Bomb” magnificence pageant.

Via a mixture of a reverse picture search on TinEye and an ordinary Google seek for “Lee Merlin,” the identify related to the lady in some posts, we had been in a position to verify that the picture is an genuine picture of a mannequin taken at a publicity occasion in Las Vegas in 1957. It was not, nonetheless, taken at a aggressive magnificence pageant. For these causes, we have now rated this declare as “Largely True.”

The photographer who took the picture, the late Don English, defined a number of the historical past behind it in an interview included in a prolonged article revealed by the Nevada Attraction in 2004. In line with him, the lady within the picture was a showgirl within the Copa Room on the Sands Resort and On line casino. English, a photographer for the Las Vegas Information Bureau, a promotional company that’s a part of the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority, employed her to pose for him on Might 24, 1957.

Town of Las Vegas started capitalizing on its proximity to the Nevada Check Web site, positioned round 65 miles north of town, shortly after the U.S. authorities facility for testing nuclear weapons opened in 1951. In line with a web page in regards to the Nevada Check Web site maintained by the Atomic Heritage Basis’s Nationwide Museum of Nuclear Science and Historical past,

Mushroom clouds from the atmospheric exams might be seen as much as 100 miles away within the distance. This led to elevated tourism for Las Vegas, and all through the Fifties and early Sixties town capitalized on this curiosity. Many visitors might see clouds, or bursts of sunshine from lodge home windows, and the lodges promoted these sights. Some casinos additionally hosted “daybreak events” and created atomic themed cocktails, encouraging guests to view the exams. Calendars all through town additionally marketed detonation instances, in addition to one of the best viewing spots to see flashes or lights or mushroom clouds.

By 1957, English stated, photographing the precise mushroom clouds from the exams had turn into boring. “We had been taking pictures so many atom bombs,” he told the Los Angeles Occasions in 2005, that “we tried to do something that was a little bit bit completely different.” In consequence, English and his colleagues got here up with the concept of making a mushroom cloud bathing swimsuit and hiring a beautiful lady to pose carrying it. 

The picture was an instantaneous hit for English. In line with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, it has been revealed in “a whole lot of publications worldwide” and, as of June 2022, remained “probably the most revealed picture within the Las Vegas Information Bureau Assortment.” 

Confirming the mannequin’s actual id is much less simple, and within the early 2000s looking for her turned one thing of an obsession for Robert Friedrichs, a scientist for the Nationwide Nuclear Safety Administration who helped to develop Las Vegas’s National Atomic Testing Museum, which options pictures of “Miss Atomic Bomb” on a few of its merchandise. 

As Friedrichs described to the Los Angeles Occasions, in addition to in an interview he gave as a part of an oral historical past venture on the College of Nevada, Las Vegas, he combed native newspaper clippings and interviewed retired Sands showgirls in an try to seek out the lady who posed within the mushroom cloud bathing swimsuit. Except for just a few imprecise recollections from her former coworkers — “She was very quiet,” one stated — and the identify Lee Merlin, which was seemingly a stage identify, Friedrichs got here up empty handed. “She dropped off the face of the Earth,” he instructed the Los Angeles Occasions.

Whatever the true id of the lady within the {photograph}, the picture’s historical past is properly documented sufficient to corroborate the date it was taken in addition to its connection to Las Vegas’ historical past of nuclear check tourism. Nevertheless, there was no official pageant behind the {photograph}. In consequence, we have now rated this declare as “Combination.”