the first ever Miss Americas and bathing beauties in the 1920s

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

Stunning photographs of beauty pageants a century ago show that little has changed.
Vintage snaps from the 1920s, 30s and 40s show smiling young women lined up in their bathing suits, standing side on with a jutted hip and a flirty forward leg - or even in the air.
And, just as today, there can only be one winner, one Miss America.

 

Bathing beauties: These pretty bathers participated in the annual beauty contest in Coney Island in 1923; the winner went on to the Atlantic City Miss America Pageant

 Past pageants: Evelyn Lewis, left, competed in the Miss America pageant as Miss Washington in 1922; right three contestants, including Miss Coney Island winners from 1924 and 1925, look like naturals

Miss America: Competing as Miss Philadelphia, Ruth Malcolmson, left, won the Golden Mermaid trophy in Atlantic City in 1924 to become Miss America. Alma Carroll, right, wearing an Army overseas cap, has answered the beauty draft call here, hoping to be crowned Miss America of National Defense in 1934

While their poses and outfits are similar, there are glaring differences in today's pageants and those of yesteryear, notably, there are no African American women among the contestants.  Indeed African American women did not begin competing in the Miss America pageant until the 1970s; the first black winner, Vanessa Williams, was crowned in 1984.
Another difference is location – the majority of black and white photos were taken in Atlantic City, the home of the annual pageant. The contest was launched in 1921 in a bid to keep tourists around following Labor Day, an idea warmly supported by the local mayor.
In 2006, after nine decades in the New Jersey entertainment mecca, the contest packed up and moved to Las Vegas. The photos also show women wearing modest swimwear compared to today's tiny bikinis, in beauty pageants in New York's Coney Island and in California.

Pretty as a picture: Atlantic City's Bathing Beauties of 1922 point their toes and nervously smile for the camera

Political pose: Beauty pageant contestants with NRA tattoos line up in Miami in the 1930s

Bathing beauties: Women and a little girl dressed in the latest in 1920s swimwear line up for a bathing beauty contest

Californian girls: Santa Monica beauty pageant winner Laura Hover, left, peers through the shapely legs of her fellow contenders. Seen right, beauty contestants protest in Venice, California, over Atlantic City's monopoly on the beauty pageant business
 

 Striking a pose: Contestants in the upcoming South Boston, Virginia beauty pageant at the National Tobacco Festival stand naked in a large hickory barrel. In 1922 Mary Catherine Campbell (as Miss Columbus) wins the Miss America title at Atlantic City, with Hudson Maxim as Neptune

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