First Miss America Beauty Contest (1920s)

With the flapper era bringing in a new breed of girls, bathing beauty contests were popping up in cities throughout the United States. Miss America beauty contest began in Atlantic City in 1921.

Chicago capitalized on this trend in 1922 by starting the Miss Chicago contest, which is still held yearly, and Texas followed suit in 1926, creating the International Pageant of Pulchritude (a fancy word meaning beauty), which became the Miss Universe competition.

[caption id="attachment_17185" align="aligncenter" width="450"] Miss Chicago Georgia Theodora Hale was the winner in the first year of the Miss Chicago contest in 1922[/caption]



One Chicago beauty was Ella Van Hueson, Miss Universe in 1928. Van Hueson had this to say after her win: "Chicago girls are beautiful. new cities have pretty girls, but Chicago has the beautiful ones'