In the first decades of the twentieth century Broadway teemed with showgirls, but only the Ziegfeld Girl has survived in American popular culture - as a figure of legend, nostalgia, and camp. This book argues that Ziegfeld Girls were both products and representations of a white, upscale, heterosexual national ideal.

In the first decades of the twentieth century Broadway teemed with showgirls, but only the Ziegfeld Girl has survived in American popular culture - as a figure of legend, nostalgia, and camp. Featured in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s renowned revues, which ran on Broadway from 1907 to 1931, the Ziegfeld Girl has appeared in her trademark feather headdresses, parading and posing, occasionally singing and dancing, in numerous musicals and musical films paying direct or indirect homage to the intrepid producer and his glorious Girl. Linda Mizejewski analyses the Ziegfeld Girl as a cultural icon and argues that during a time when American national identity was in flux, Ziegfeld Girls were both products and representations of a white, upscale, heterosexual national ideal. "Ziegfeld Girl" will appeal to scholars and students in American studies, popular culture, theatre and performance studies, film history, gender studies, gay and lesbian studies, and social history.