Photos: When these feminists protested the Miss America pageant, the bra-burning myth was born

In September 1968, around 400 feminists agreed, protesting the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Demonstrators clogged the storied boardwalk abutting the convention center, picketing the pageant with sardonic signage and a “Freedom Trash Can” into which they tossed objects symbolizing female oppression, including cleaning products, high heel shoes, makeup and hairspray, copies of Playboy and Cosmopolitan, girdles, and bras. (This is the origin of the “bra burning” feminist trope, though none of the objects in the trash can were actually set on fire.) At one point protesters crowned a live sheep Miss America, likening the pageant to judging livestock at a county fair.