Why do beauty pageants

The final ten entrants would receive specially commissioned oil portraits of themselves. These portraits would be reproduced in a "fine arts" book to be published in France, entitled the World's Book of Female Beauty. Barnum sold off his museum before the photographs arrived, but in employing modern technology and in combining lowbrow entertainment with the appeal of highbrow culture, Barnum pioneered a new model of commercial entertainment.

In the decades to come, the picture photo contest was widely imitated and became a respectable way for girls and women to have their beauty judged. Civic leaders across the country, seeking to boost citizen morale, incorporate newcomers, and attract new settlers and businesses to their communities, held newspaper contests to choose women that represented the "spirit" of their locales.

One of the most popular of these contests occurred in , when promoters of the St. Louis Exposition contacted city newspapers across the country to select a representative young woman from their city to compete for a beauty title at the Exposition. There was intense competition and, according to one report, forty thousand photo entries. By the early decades of the twentieth century, attitudes had begun to change about beauty pageants.

Prohibitions against the display of women in public began to fade, though not to disappear altogether. One of the earliest known resort beauty pageants had been held in , at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. However, it was not until the twentieth century that beach resorts began to hold regular beauty pageants as entertainments for the growing middle class.

Stressing that the contestants were both youthful and wholesome, the Miss America Pageant brought together issues of democracy and class, art and commerce, gender and sex — and started a tradition that would grow throughout the century to come. Engineer Richard Osborne named and designed Atlantic City. Since it was the shortest distance between Philadelphia and the sea, Atlantic City grew quickly as a resort town. By the s, a boardwalk had been added, providing more people with access to the sea.

The city boasted a prototype rollercoaster by the late s. In the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, middle and working class Philadephians, and soon others from up and down the East Coast, would come to play by the seaside.

Vendors hawked their wares. Children rode carousels, and families dined in seaside cafes. Concerts were held on the sand every evening and the many hotels up and down the shore held gala dances. Atlantic City seemed to have developed two personalities.

On the one hand, the resort was promoted as a restful and wholesome vacation spot, offering sun and surf. On the other hand, tourists reveled in the boisterous atmosphere spawned by a festival of midways, numerous amusement piers such as the one H.

Heinz purchased to popularize his 57 varieties of pickles , and a selection of rollicking rides. Atlantic City and its older sibling to the north, Coney Island, became extravagant playgrounds. It is all surface; it is hard, glittering, unspeakably cacophonous, and it never sleeps at all. Three days and you crave the comparative solitude of Broadway and 34th Street; a week and you may die of insomnia. By the s, Atlantic City also had become a pre-Broadway show tryout town, a practice that continued until With the entrance of show business, the resort increasingly attracted celebrities who added a special element of glamour.

Even as the city declined as a Broadway showcase, the celebrities continued to grace the city in the decades to come. Its tourism and light-hearted revelry made Atlantic City the perfect spot to hold the first Miss America Pageant on September 8th, King Neptune himself greeted the beauties competing along the shore.

At the time, Atlantic City was known as one of the premier spots to market to a national audience. In Goodyear had a truck haul a foot tall rubber tire around the city as "the World's Largest Tire. What better place to present and package the nation's reigning ideal of femininity — Miss America? Though the economy hit hard times in the s, people continued to flock to Atlantic City. It became even more well known when it became the city featured in the Depression-era hit game, Monopoly , where players handled large sums of money and strategized to buy the best property along the boardwalk.

Today, Monopoly is still the most popular board game in the world. With the advent of air travel to vacation spots like Florida and the Caribbean, the city hit a decline in the s.

The city was beset with economic problems for the next two decades. In , the city legalized gambling and supported the construction of casinos. At the time gambling was brought in, proponents heralded it as a "unique tool of urban development. At the same time, over the last three decades, the city has been faced with a decaying inner city and a high poverty rate, challenging citizens and casino owners to manage the city's day-to-day needs as well as it serves its tourist visitors.

Next door to the Convention Center, one of the biggest trade shows for the beauty pageant industry sets up shop in a casino. Pageant hopefuls are seen everywhere on the boardwalk and in the hotels, adding to the excitement of being in Atlantic City. Atlantic City emerged as a beach resort for Philadelphians by In the s, a boardwalk was added. Over the next fifty years, hotels, saltwater taffy, hot dog stands and arcades all added to the holiday atmosphere for summer vacationers.

In the Businessmen's League of Atlantic City came up with a plan to keep fun and profits continuing past Labor Day. For September 25th, they organized a Fall Frolic. Three hundred and fifty gaily decorated rolling wicker chairs were pushed along the parade route. Three hundred and fifty men pushed the chairs. However, the main attractions were the young "maidens" who sat in the rolling chairs, headed by a Miss Ernestine Cremona, who was dressed in a flowing white robe and represented "Peace.

The glittering spectacle was proclaimed a success. The Businessmen's League went to work soon afterwards to plan for the next year's event. They appointed a committee to organize a "bather's revue. The winners would participate in the Atlantic City contest. If the local newspaper would pay for the winner's wardrobe, the Atlantic City Businessmen's League would pay for the contestant's travel to compete in the Inter City Beauty Contest.

As plans proceeded and contestants were selected, a local Atlantic City newspaperman, Herb Test, enthusiastically proclaimed, "And we'll call her Miss America. For the Fall Frolic five days of festivities were planned, including tennis tournaments, parades, concerts, a fancy dress ball as well as seven different bathing divisions featuring children, men, and comic costumes. It seemed that everyone in town was dressing in bathing suits, including firemen and the police.

But you would be surprised to find out that most of us have real career goals to become doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers and journalists, to make a difference in any way we can. When you hold a pageant title , your time is spent volunteering, advocating for issues you care about, and setting an example for generations of girls to come.

Walking on that stage, whether it be in your opening number dress, swimsuit or evening gown makes you feel on top of the world — the true beauty of a beauty pageant. Alina Halley, 21, is a mass communications major at North Campus.

Halley, who graduated from Coral Reef Senior High School in , will serve as a news, forum and briefing writer for The Reporter during the school year. She aspires to be a journalist. Alina Halley has 52 posts and counting. See all posts by Alina Halley. Skip to content. This however goes beyond looks to project such qualities as; intelligence, confidence, poise, charity, charm among others. Beauty pageants focus on outward appearance rather than inner beauty. They create young children who hate their appearance and become obsessed with perfecting it.

From mock interviews to paperwork studying, it is crucial that you know your stuff. Speaking from personal experience, I feel most at ease and prepared when I have exhausted every form of practice, especially interview wise. Additionally, preparing for a pageant could be a spiritual experience for some contestants. The purpose of beauty pageants is to find ones personality, their own strengths and weakness as a person, gain confidence and raise their self-esteem, and prove to people that it is not impossible to have beauty and brains.

Works Cited Cromie, William J. Depending on which type of pageant system is entered, contestants will spend about two hours or less in the actual competition.