A black-and-white photo circulating on social media shows a woman in a bathing suit and a group of men behind a sign titled “Miss Lube Rack”. Some users claim that the photo of the American speaker Nancy Pelosi was displayed in 1959. This statement is false.
Examples of these posts can be seen here, here, here.
Most repetitions read: “I know, you have no idea !! Can she be a movie star? Recording artist? Politician? Her name is Nancy D’Alesandro Still dumb? Nancy D’Alesandro is known today as Nancy Pelosi, the former Miss Lube Rack 1959! ”.
The photo in this claim can be seen on Getty Images as part of the LIFE Picture Collection. It was captured in 1951, not in 1959 as claimed in social media posts.
The description reads: “Muller’s Car Wash employees pose with the beauty pageant, ‘Miss Lube Rack’, in Hollywood, California. More images from that day can be seen here.
Nancy Pelosi, formerly known as Nancy D’Alesandro, was born on March 26, 1940 (here) in Baltimore, Maryland. However, when the photo was captured in this claim, she was only 11 years old and therefore apparently could not be the woman in the photo.
A 12-year-old Nancy can be seen with her family here an archive photo of the Baltimore Sun.
Similar versions of this claim say that the image shows that Pelosi has been in circulation since at least 2013 (here, here), and this was previously dismissed by Snopes here.
VERDICT
Untrue. Photo does not show Nancy Pelosi in 1959 as ‘Miss Lube Rack’.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.