They appointed a committee to organize a “bather’s revue.” Newspapers sponsored beauty pageants based on photo submissions, newspapers from as far as Pittsburgh and Washington, D.C, were asked to sponsor a local beauty contests. The winner would participate in the Atlantic City contest. If the local newspaper would pay for the winners clothes the Atlantic City Businessmen League would pay for the contestants travel ticket to compete in the Inner City Beauty Contest. As the plans continued to work contestants were selected, a local Atlantic City newspaperman Herb Test proclaimed, “And we’ll call her Miss …show more content…
Neptune was surrounded by a costume ball with 20 black men and women, also known as “slaves.” The winner of the Golden Mermaid trophy and $100 was chosen by an equal combination of the crowd’s applause and the points given to her by a panel of artists who served as judges. The winner was a sixteen year old, Margaret Goman. She was from Washington D.C. They crowned her and wrapped her in an American flag as they paraded her around as Miss America. Samuel Gompers, the president of the American Federation of Labor said, “She represents the type of a womanhood America needs… strong, red blooded, able to shoulder the responsibilities of homemaking and motherhood. It is in her type that the hope of the country rests.” Over the next six years, parades and festivities had been expanded. The beauty contest was increasingly popular and the number of contestants had