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Pageant for all its worth. In the 1950s, souvenir peel-and-stick Roller Chairs on Parade. Similarly,
travel decals and felt pennants often featured images of enticing, themed items depict local
bathing suit-clad Miss Americas. Postcards often depicted elaborately pleasures like fishing, boating, and
clad contestants, like Miss New Mexico or Miss New Jersey, atop fes- swimming in vivid red, white, and
tive Miss America Parade floats. blue graphics.
Many souvenir ceramic plates and bottles feature a Miss America In addition, year after year,
image amid those of popular tourist sights like the Convention Hall, images of the most recent Miss
Million Dollar Pier, race track, Boardwalk, beach, and traditional America graced untold numbers of
national magazines,
newspapers, and TV
Vintage 1972 Quick Curl Miss America Doll, No. 8697, new TV Time featuring Suzette Charles,
in original box with accessories, selling for $189.95 on eBay Miss America 1984, with pageant Guide covers. Remarkably, 1988
host Gary Collins, selling for when contestants repre- retro alarm
$9.95 at Etsy. senting Oklahoma, Kansas, clock featuring the “Miss
Arkansas, and North Carolina, America” contestants,
won the crown, their states original parts, metal,
issued triumphant “Home of selling for $29.99 on Etsy
Miss America” license plates.
Generally the pricing for Miss America remain low,
but rare items prove to be somewhat hard to find in good
condition and can bring coveted prices – depending upon
which contestant won in any given year.
Many who seek Miss America memorabilia are fans
of Atlantic City or have personally attended one of
its Pageants. Others recall that magical television
moment when Bert Parks, its longtime master of
ceremonies, crooned its theme song,
There She Is, Miss America!

Margaret Gorman, the First Miss America
n 1921, the parents of 16-year-old Margaret Gorman, a Her reign was brief. No sooner had the title been invented
junior at Western High School in Washington, D.C., than she lost it to one Mary Campbell in 1923.
Isubmitted her photograph to a popularity contest in the Gorman returned to compete a third time in 1924 but
Washington Herald. Of about a thousand entries, she was placed as first runner-up that year, and pageant rules were then
selected as one of six finalists. When reporters from The amended to prevent anyone from winning more than once.
Washington Herald came to Georgetown to notify Margee In later years, as the contest grew into a major annual
Gorman that she had been selected to represent the event, the now-married Mrs. Cahill—who in 1925 married
newspaper in the Atlantic City contest, they found her in a Vincent Cahill, a real estate broker—sought to distance
nearby park shooting marbles in the dirt. herself from her role in the pageant, especially the beauty
That summer, she and the other five contestants toured queen label. “My husband hated it,” she said. “I did, too.”
the city, culminating in Margaret being chosen as “Miss Cahill also said: “I never cared to be Miss America. It
District of Columbia” in 1921 at age 16 (and by some wasn’t my idea. I am so bored by it all. I really want to forget
accounts only 15 according to her obituary in The New the whole thing.”
York Times) on account of her athletic ability, past The couple continued to live in the D.C. area. Though
accomplishments, and outgoing personality. The prize was her opinion of the Miss America pageant would sour in later
an invitation to participate in the Second Annual Atlantic years—she called them “cheap” for failing to reimburse her
City Pageant held on September 8, 1921, as an honored $1,500 in expenses for a 1960 Atlantic City reunion—she
guest. There she won the titles “Inter-City Beauty, Margaret Gorman still kept her sea-green chiffon and sequined dress from 1922
Amateur” and “The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in posing along the tucked away in her closet.
America” after competing in the Bather’s Revue. Under boardwalk in 1921 Margaret and Victor Cahill were happily married until
scrutiny by judges and spectators, and peppered with his death in 1957. Margaret lived the rest of her life in
questions, Gorman wooed the crowd and took the top amateur prize, Washington D.C., became somewhat of a socialite, and enjoyed
then the coveted grand prize: the “Golden Mermaid” trophy. traveling. She died on October 1, 1995, aged 90.
To be sure, the swimsuits of the era were demure by modern
standards, none more so than Gorman’s. While some of her rivals
violated a local modesty ordinance by appearing barelegged on the
beach, she wore dark, knee-high stockings and a chiffon bathing
costume with a tiered skirt that came almost to her knees.
Gorman was expected to defend her positions the next year. After
another year back at school, she did return to Atlantic City to defend
her title – but The Washington Herald had already held another contest
and named a new Miss Washington, D.C.
Pageant officials were flummoxed on what title to give Gorman. The
ones she had acquired the previous year—“Inter-City Beauty,
Amateur,” and “The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America”—didn’t Sept. 9, 1922 – Gorman, far right, poses in swimwear, with Mary Dague,
exactly roll off the tongue. So they decided to call her “Miss America.” Dorothy Haupt, Helen Lynch, Ellen E. Sherr, and Paula E. Spoettle

24 Journal of Antiques and Collectibles