Miss America 2018: How the pageant went from boardwalk curiosity to national tradition

Posted September 04, 2017 at 09:30 AM

By Amy Kuperinsky | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Since 1921, the Miss America pageant — with the exception of a few years in between — has called Atlantic City home.

At first, pageant hopefuls were called "bathing beauties." Later, they became contestants with talents and advocates with platforms. Along the way, pageant rules became more stringent and exclusive, were repealed, rolled back and instituted again.
She may have represented the feminine "ideal," but Miss America has always had her own scandals. There were milestones, too, including markers of change, though some signs of progress lagged years behind contemporary society.
As Miss America 2018 ramps up in Atlantic City — the pageant airs live from Boardwalk Hall on Sept. 10 — here's a look at the New Jersey pageant over the last 96 years.
Pictured: Miss America at Boardwalk Hall in 1952.

1921: The beginnings of Miss America can be found in the Inter-City Beauties program organized by newspapers. These eight representatives won a trip to the Fall Frolic, a happening designed to boost business on the boardwalk in Atlantic City as summer drew to a close.

The original
Also in 1921: Margaret Gorman of Washington D.C. becomes what is later (in 1922) known as Miss America after she triumphed in both the Inter-City Beauty Contest and the Bather’s Revue, winning a golden mermaid. Miss America Organization

No married women
1924: After Miss Boston and a contestant from a previous year are found to be married, the pageant starts prohibiting married women from entering Miss America. Pictured: Ruth Malcomson, Miss Philadelphia, wins the pageant this year. Miss America Organization

1925: Miss America mints its own 22nd Amendment. Mary Katherine Campbell (Miss Columbus — representing Ohio) won Miss America in both 1922 and 1923, but in 1925, the same year that the pageant is first broadcast live on radio, the rules change so that a previous winner cannot compete. 

1926: Norma Smallwood of Tulsa becomes the first contestant of Native American heritage to win the pageant (crowned by King Neptune). Perhaps because of the later repeal of a rule that stipulated contestants must be white, other pageant histories hold that in 1941, Miss Oklahoma, Mifauny Shunatona, also became the first Native American contestant to compete.

Canceled
1928: Miss America is shut down after women’s groups and churches criticize the pageant and a newspaper story alleges that the competition is fixed. A scaled-down pageant returns in 1933, during the Great Depression, but is not a success. Other copycat pageants emerge in the ’30s, but the pageant ultimately returns again in 1935, with an added talent portion that becomes a requirement in 1938.

Star-Ledger file photo
The runaway Miss America
1937: Bette Cooper, a contestant from Hackettstown, N.J. who competed as Miss Bertrand Island after entering the competition on a dare at the now-defunct amusement park, runs away with her escort after winning the crown. She apparently didn’t want to win, and wished only to return home and go to college instead of cashing in on a vaudeville contract.

No divorcees or married women

1938: Miss America again bans married women, but also women who were previously married, divorced women and women who had marriages annulled. Contestants must also be from 18 to 28 years old. (The age limit would later change to 24 years old, as long as the contestant doesn't turn 25 before the end of the year.)

Miss America Organization
1940: Miss America drops "rule 7," which specified that contestants had to be "of good health and of the white race." Prior to this, contestants had to provide a detailed accounting of their ancestry. It would be nearly 30 years before the pageant would see a black contestant. Pictured: Miss America 1940, Frances Burke.

Miss America Organization
1945: Bess Myerson — who was pressured to compete under a different last name, but didn’t — becomes the first Jewish Miss America and the first winner to receive a scholarship from the pageant. In the face of anti-Semitism, Myerson embraces the message "you can’t be beautiful and hate," which acts as a kind of forerunner to what would later become the pageant platform.

Miss America Organization
Mandatory bikinis and the bikini ban
1947-1948: As bikinis start becoming fashionable in 1947, Miss America requires contestants to wear two-piece bathing suits. The very next year, bikinis are banned in favor of a mandatory black-and-white striped cable knit swimsuit. Pictured: Barbara Jo Walker, Miss America 1947, the last Miss America to be crowned in a swimsuit (thereafter, contestants would be crowned in their evening gowns).
1948: The first Asian and Latina contestants — Miss Hawaii, Yun Tau Zane, and Miss Puerto Rico, Irma Nydia Vasquez — enter the competition.

Miss America Organization
Bathing suit flap
1950: Today the pageant is known for its bathing suit strut, but Yolanda Betbeze, Miss America 1951 (in this year, the pageant started postdating winners for the following year), refused to pose in a swimsuit from Catalina Swimwear, causing the sponsor to drop the pageant and start another pageant — Miss Universe, which later produced Miss USA. (Donald Trump bought the pageant in 1996 and sold it in 2015.)

Miss America Organization
No marriage
1951: Barbara Jo Walker, Miss America 1947, got married during her reign – something that would now not only be a taboo but also disallowed. In the year that Colleen Hutchins became Miss America 1952, Miss Americas were barred from getting married during their time wearing the crown.

Miss America Organization/AP
A TV tradition is born
1954: Miss America is broadcast on TV for the first time, drawing a whopping 27 million viewers. Future Catwoman Lee Meriwether wins the 1955 crown.

Miss America Organization
1959: Miss America bans strip teases after Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, sheds some clothing while performing her vocal routine.

Miss America Organization
Miss America protest
1968: Women's liberation hits Miss America, as protesters, including the New York Radical Women, who refer to Miss America as the "degrading mindless-boob-girlie symbol," take to the boardwalk, dumping beauty standards and bras, girdles, pots and pans — "instruments of female torture" — in the garbage (not actually burning them) as the 1969 Miss America pageant, where Judi Ford (above) is crowned, gets underway. During the show, protesters unfurl a banner from a balcony that says "Women's Liberation." While the moment isn't captured by cameras, it becomes a major story.
Here's how the Miss America Organization describes the incident on its website: "Feminists stormed the boardwalk in Atlantic City in their crusade for equal rights. They used Miss America as a symbol for their fight which encouraged even more change for The Miss America Organization."

Miss America Organization
Progress ... in baby steps
1970: Cheryl Adrienne Browne, Miss Iowa, at top left, becomes the first African-American contestant.

Miss America Organization
A first, then a scandal
1983: Miss New York, Vanessa Williams, becomes the first black Miss America. Shortly before her reign is over in 1984, she is forced to resign because Penthouse magazine published nude photos of her that were taken before she competed. Runner-up Miss New Jersey, Suzette Charles, takes over for the remaining weeks.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/09/miss_america_2018_history.html