For a second time, The Jazz Singer plays again. There is more to be discussed with this film in terms of the themes of The Modern Temper, as it focuses on secularism. These themes are presented throughout the film, and are important to the message it gives to the audience.

The biggest theme shared with both mediums is the push-and-pull relationship between religion and modernity. Religion became less popular as secularism rose, causing religious groups, like Judaism, attempting to change in order to appeal to the younger generation.

Reform Judaism proposed “Reconstrictionism,” which “[de-emphasized] the belief in the supernatural, the ideas of Jews as a chosen people, and adherence to archaic Jewish law.”¹ On the other hand, more traditional sects, “modified the traditional orthodoxy of Southern and Eastern European parents to make it more palatable to modern Americans.”² As a result, there were people who joined synagogues and contributed to Judaism through donations.

The Modern Temper also discusses how “Jewish identity became for them a semisecularized form of ethnicity,” which does reflect in The Jazz Singer.³ Judaism is a core identity of Jack Robin, the main character, and he does struggle with choosing religion or modernity. In the end, he does choose performing at the synagogue in place of his father over performing on Broadway, reflecting Judaism staying strong in the United States, despite the film ending with him performing on the stage.

Surprisingly, what the film does not touch upon is the rampant anti-Semitism throughout the period. Even before the 1920s, Jewish people were seen as lesser than due to nativism, and their religion and practices were referred to as “alien” and “outlandish.”⁴ As a result, hostility against Jewish people rose as they were discriminated against socially and economically. Additionally, conspiracy theories against Jews were rampant, such as claims of “most nation-states [being] strongly influenced if not completely controlled by Jews” and the claims of Jewish people controlling the banking system.⁵

Despite the rampant anti-Semitism, The Jazz Singer doesn’t feature any commentary on it. While it, arguably, would have made the themes of the film slightly convoluted, it wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would have made for a more intriguing story if there were a comment or two of distrust made by one of his peers, making his choice more difficult. It would also give more to discuss about the film in terms of its contemporary look on Jewish people rather than simply a divide between secularization and religion.

Overall, while secularism and religion are the driving themes in The Jazz Singer, there’s not much to the film besides that. The relationship between Jack and his Judaism is shallow, and while Jewish people do have a history with vaudeville, it’s not extremely crazy to say that the story would have been drastically different if the main character were a different religion, such as Catholic.

While it holds up as the first ever film with dialogue, there’s not much more past the conflict of religion, and there are stories created after this film that likely do this plotline better.

Footnotes

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 175. ︎
2. Dumenil, 176. ︎
3. Dumenil, 176. ︎
4. Dumenil, 214. ︎
5. Dumenil, 216. ︎

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper : American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York, Ny: Hill and Wang, 2007.

Eryn Argonza

Eryn is a Ramapo College sophomore majoring in History and minoring in Museum Studies.

Atlantic City & 1920s Tourism

Atlantic City, one of New Jersey’s most famous coastal vacation spots, was established in 1854 when a track was created from Camden, NJ, crossing the Delaware River from Philadelphia to the shore. This resulted in a major increase in tourism. As tourism boomed, a town was built behind the beach and wooden hotels began to line up the area. This increase of tourism left many to see profitable business.

Atlantic City developed the reputation of being both a restful vacation destination and a lively spot for amusements. The city’s signature rolling chairs started off as mere wheelchairs for visitors to use from hotel to hotel. It gradually evolved into a rental business as others joined in. By 1892, rolling chairs had become a popular trend, and by the 1920s, they were widely used. The city officially became a place where middle class people could pretend to be rich, with show business attractions becoming their popular source of entertainment.² Business leaders began to build luxurious spots for middle class tourists, and by the 1920s, the middle class had come to dominate the new consumer culture. This new middle class, typically men, sought personal satisfaction in leisure and consumption.³ It was this very class that motivated local businessmen to create one of America’s most famous pageants, the “Miss America” pageant.

The Very First Miss America Pageant in 1921

The 1920s marked a decade when businessmen sought to rise into a more idealized position. Even small businessmen made an effort to present themselves as dedicated to civic life.⁴ In fact, it was local small businessmen who created the pageant. The “Miss America Pageant” owes its existence to a man named Conrad Eckholm, owner of a hotel named the Monticello. He proposed to have the Atlantic City Business Men’s League sponsor a week-long event that extended the Labor Day weekend. This proposal’s goal was to benefit smaller side hotels that were not on the boardwalk, including his own. They donated around $5,916 towards this event and named it the “Fall Frolic of 1920.”.⁵ It would not yet feature the beauty pageant until the following year. Instead, they hosted an hour-long “Rolling Chair Parade”. After the 1920 event, an Atlantic City newspaperman, Harry Finely, suggested a beauty contest to be added to the next Fall Frolic. When gathered in a meeting with the city’s managers, he proposed that newspapers throughout many cities should run the contest. This contest would choose the “most popular young woman” in their respective city. To create a more “appropriate” way to host a beauty contest for the middle class, newspapers helped by having people send in photos of contestants instead of letting contestants sign up themselves. Liking the idea, the President of the Chamber Commerce, Sam P. Leeds, presented Finley’s proposal to the Hotelsman Association. They agreed to have these women compete against other Inter-City contestants at the Frolic. Many East Coast newspapers ran this popularity contest, calling it the “Inter-City Beauties” contest. Cities like Pittsburgh, Washington D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Jersey City, and Newark held summer events where women were judged on their beauty and impression. The winners from each city would then win a free trip to Atlantic City to attend the Fall Frolic. On July 24, 1921, The Washington Post announced the winners of their contest, with the first prize winner being sixteen year old Margaret Gorman.⁶ On September 2, 1921, the Camden Daily Courier announced Kathryne Gearson as the winner to represent South Jersey. She would later be given the title “Miss Camden” for the pageant.⁷ Other cities chose their own winners. The women to be sent to Atlantic City were Miss Philadelphia, Nellie Orr, Miss Ocean City, Hazel Harris, Miss Pittsburgh, Thelma Matthews, and Miss Harrisburg, Emma Pharo.

The official pageant began on September 7th, 1921. Hudson Maxim, popularly known as the inventor of smokeless powder, played a character named “King Neptune”. He arrived with a group of “mermaids”, the Inter-City contest winners. They all arrived at the Million Dollar Pier for the opening ceremony. King Neptune and the Inter-City women paraded on a seashell float on the boardwalk. The women later visited the Keith’s Theatre, where a crowd and a panel of judges examined and questioned them. The audience’s favorite was Washington D.C’s, Margaret Gorman, earning her the first trophy. In the evening, Neptune and the women watched a performance by “Dawson’s Dancing Dolls”. The public watched the show with the contestants in full view. At the end of the first day, Neptune and the women attended a costumed ballroom event called “The Frolique”. They sat on a throne display, watching the event take place.⁹

The next day of the pageant featured the Bathers’ Revue, a series of bathing suit contests. All participants and visitors were required to wear one-piece bathing suits. Around one thousand people showed up to watch the Rolling Chair Parade and beauty contests. The Bathers Revue beauty pageant had two sub-categories: “Amateur” and “Professional”.¹⁰ The professional category included professional actresses, dancers, models and swimmers. Across four contests, women competed for the titles of “Most Beautiful” and “Most Beautiful Bathing Beauty.” The overall winner would receive the ultimate prize, the “Golden Mermaid Trophy”, and be crowned the first “Miss America”. Miss Washington, Margaret Gorman, won both the Inter-City Beauty Amateur title and first place in the Inter-City Bather’s Revue, while Miss Philadelphia, Nellie Orr, came in second.

List of Finalists:

Gorman, Saunders, and Salisbury competed against each other for the ultimate title of “Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America.” A panel of judges and the audience chose the winner. Since the audience favored Gorman the most, she won the “Golden Mermaid Trophy,” earning her title as the very first “Miss America.”. After her victory, reporters and photographers surrounded her as she attended parties held in her honor. The pageant became a huge success, motivating its organizers to host it again the following years.

The 1920s Pageants, Controversies, & the Women’s-Religious Protests

The pageant was so successful that the number of days, activities, attendees, and contestants increased each year. The number of contestants grew from just eight to eighty-three by 1924.¹³ In addition, new rules were added. In the early years, a winning Miss America could reenter the pageant in order to fight for her right to maintain her status. However, after Ruth Malcomson, Miss America 1924, criticized the fairness of allowing professional women to compete, new rules were introduced prohibiting any past winner from reentering. Another rule added was that married women could not become contestants in the pageant. The pageant never explicitly enforced this rule, assuming that this was something the public knew to follow. However, after the discovery of a married contestant, the rule was explicitly put in place. Another change was the audience’s power. Gorman won her place as Miss America with the overwhelming support of the audience. This changed in 1922 when the audience’s votes were eliminated. This granted judges the sole decision of crowning the winner. In addition, a new category, the “evening gown” competition, was introduced to the pageant. By 1923, the pageant gained national recognition, and newspapers all over the country covered its events. Not only did the pageant become more popular, its winners did as well. Mary Campbell, Miss America 1922 and 23, received offers to be in films, musicals, and vaudeville shows. However, she refused these offers to return to school. Miss America 1925, Fay Lanphier, was the first to be in a Hollywood movie and profit from her own tour. This demonstrates that as the pageant grew in popularity, it became more commercialized. It was so commercialized that by 1925, contestants were asked to sign an agreement to appear in a Hollywood film if they won. Contestants also began to promote products on their floats. Pageant promoters, however, did not look favorably upon this. Even so, the 1926 Miss America, Norma Smallwood, made around $100,000 in product endorsements. She would go on to earn a salary that surpassed that of President Coolidge himself.

Although the pageant gained massive popularity, it also sparked controversy amongst religious and women’s groups. In the 1920s, Americans struggled to adjust to modern life while also trying to keep their traditional beliefs and values. Religion was losing its influence on Americans, and Protestantism was no longer a dominant force shaping cultural norms.¹⁴ Religious leaders began to view the popular culture of the 1920s, shaped by materialism and the pursuit of wealth, as a decline in religious values. An example of the “moral decline” that religious groups were concerned with was the display of the female body, especially through bathing suits. They viewed bathing suits and uncovered knees as immoral and improper. By protesting, clergymen contributed to the creation of beach rules that banned or regulated bathing suits.¹⁵ Atlantic City was not an exception. The first year the pageant took place, there were restrictions on bare knees and skin-tight bathing suits. However, the competitions were temporarily exempt from these restrictions. This contributed to the protests against the pageant. In September of 1923, The Ocean City Camp Meeting Association held an annual reunion. A group of people, including a preacher, created a resolution condemning the bathers’ review of the pageant. The resolution stated “The danger lies in taking girls of tender years and robbing them in attire that transgresses the limit of morality”.¹⁶ Besides religious motivations, feminism also played a role. While many might assume that feminism would oppose restrictions on women’s choices of clothes, a more traditional form of feminism supported these restrictions. Feminists argued that the pageant reduced women to their physical appearance, encouraged rivalry, and exploited them for profit. On April 18, 1924, the New York Times reported that the Y.W.C.A created a resolution that condemned the pageant. They claimed it corrupted women of “pure womanhood” by encouraging vanity and envy.¹⁷ In October of 1924, the Pennsylvania Federation of Women’s Clubs presented a statement that denounced beauty pageants. They encouraged women’s educational and religious groups to do the same. The year of 1927 experienced greater opposition. On September 29, 1927, the National Council of Catholic Women presented a statement that stated the pageant “exploited the feminine beauty of young women for financial gain”.¹⁸ They accused parents of entering their daughters for money and urged other Catholics to oppose these pageants. In November of 1927, the Atlantic County Federation of Church Women protested the pageant and the commercialization of the boardwalk. They called it an immoral influence on women and a barrier to the public’s free use of the area. The pageant organizers tried to ignore these protests, however, they decided to temporarily discontinue the pageant in fear it could damage Atlantic City’s reputation.

Miss America & The Flapper

The “New Woman” of the 1920s symbolized the “modern woman” who entered positions that challenged traditional female roles. They entered the public sphere and exhibited changing sexual attitudes. Similar to the push-back from religious groups against a modern secular society, the modern “New Woman” also faced resistance. In addition to religious controversy, the “Miss America” pageant faced criticism for the commercialization that some of the women became involved in. In its later years, it opened opportunities for women to earn their own money in product endorsements, tours, and even Hollywood films. This being a part of the symbol of the “New Woman”, it led to controversy. Even in its beginnings in 1921, it faced similar criticisms. In August 13, 1921, The New York Times reported that an Oklahoma Congressman sought a beauty pageant ban, stating that “Modern women were thinking more of their looks than of their home”.¹⁹ Despite this, the Miss America pageant had actually served as a form of resistance to the “New Woman,” particularly the image of “The Flapper”. Flappers were young, single women who defied Victorian constraints by rejecting corsets, wearing bobbed hair, dressing in shorter, less shaped skirts, applying darker makeup, and smoking. To combat this image, pageant promoters were interested in promoting girls who resembled a more traditional “Victorian-like” kind of womanhood. These women were subservient, and demonstrated capability of being a good wife, homemaker, and mother. Contestants were expected to show no interest in pursuing public careers, instead valuing marriage. Pageant judges and audiences favored contestants who acted and dressed in a way that differed from flappers. Contestants were often accompanied by their mothers and acted surprised in their success in order to maintain an “innocent” image. Additionally, contestants with unbobbed, conservatively styled hair and no dark makeup were praised.²⁰

Despite the festive atmosphere of Atlantic City, contestants were portrayed as church-attending women who abstained from gambling, smoking, and drinking alcohol. Promoters were eager to present the pageant as “above” these vices. These portrayals were essential to the image of “Miss America”, representing the ideal of what they believed the American woman in the 1920s should look like. “Miss America” winners of the 1920s, who possessed these characteristics, were often reported in newspapers. First Miss America, Margaret Gorman, was praised for “possessing the basic virtues of American womanhood”.²¹ Similarly, the 1922-23 winner, Mary Campbell, was admired for her “innocent, wholesome, and traditional” demeanor. The 1924 winner, Ruth Malcomson, stood out for rarely wearing makeup and never having visited a hairdresser. The 1927 winner, Lois Delander, was recognized for her knowledge of Bible verses, along with her refusal to use makeup or tobacco. The Washington Post reported that she was an “Unbobbed high school student.”. The New Britain Herald reported that the 1925 winner, Fay Lanphier, had “blonde unbobbed hair and did not engage in smoking cigarettes,”. The New York Times reported that the 1926 winner, Norma Smallwood, was a “Western girl whose hair was unbobbed.”.²² Overall, pageant promoters wished for these women to represent traditional, Victorian-like ideals of femininity, hoping they would serve as models for other women.

Miss America & The Suffragette

While the “Miss America” pageant openly defied the image of the “modern” flapper, it also subtly defied another kind of “New Woman” of the 1920s, the woman in politics. The concept of a “pageant” has ties to women’s groups of the 19th century, including reform groups, church groups, and schoolteachers. These groups practiced “pageantry” as a form of public entertainment to promote their movements and goals. As early as 1848, the first Women’s Rights convention in Seneca Falls featured elements of pageantry to showcase women’s unity within the movement.²⁵ One of the primary goals of Women’s Rights advocates was the right to vote, known as suffrage. These “suffragettes” were inspired during their travels to England by the pageants hosted by British suffragists. The National American Woman’s Suffrage Association began hosting their own pageants in 1908 with the largest being held in 1913. The National Woman Suffrage Parade & Pageant in Washington D.C. was hosted the day before Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. The pageant celebrated women’s contributions to democracy and society by dressing up as figures that represented “Lady Columbia”, “Liberty”, “Justice”, and “Peace”.²⁶ These suffragettes sought to raise awareness of their goals, celebrate their unity, and demonstrate their belief in women’s moral value to the vote. Many of these suffragettes would remain politically active in the 1920s, contributing to the presence of women in politics and reforms. They continued the practice of political pageantry through the “Equal Rights” pageants hosted by the Woman’s Party. The Miss America pageant incorporated elements that resembled these suffrage pageants. Not only was it also labeled a “pageant”, the Miss America pageant followed the suffrage tradition of holding parades. Contestants even wore sashes with the names of their states or cities, closely resembling those worn by suffragettes.²⁷ However, instead of promoting social progress and intellectualism, the “Miss America” pageant was based on beauty as defined by the male and public population. Rather than women’s unity under a shared movement, it encouraged competition. Lastly, instead of raising funds for a cause, it focused on commercialization and entertainment. The pageant acted as a reaction to, or alternative version of, the more political pageants, instead promoting a “less threatening” subservient image of women.

Significance

I chose the first Miss America pageant because I was unaware that its origins trace back to the 1920s. After its success in 1921, it quickly evolved from a small, city-based competition into a nationally recognized event attracting participants from across the country. Newspapers, and later radios, covered the pageants. While it became an anticipated event, it received backlash.

At first, the “Miss America” pageant seems like a trivial event. However, it can enhance our understanding of the decade. The first pageants of the 1920s embodied both the stereotypical image of the decade as one of entertainment, fun, and consumerism and as a response to, or even a challenge against, the changing cultural norms of the era. The pageant ironically included elements that strayed from the Victorian image while also reinforcing it. Religious-Women’s groups viewed the display of the female body for competition as immoral. To the perspective of many, it encouraged women to prioritize their beauty over other aspects of their life. It also served as a gateway to wealth, (an image often associated with the decade today) which was seen as immoral by religious groups. It reinforced older values by rejecting one of the most recognizable symbols of the decade, “The Flapper”. The pageant attempted to reject this “new modern woman” by rewarding contestants who resembled her as little as possible. It also provided a version of pageantry that did not showcase women and their social-political interests. 

The controversies that it experienced still remain relevant today, as the backlash seen in the 1920s resurfaced in the late 1960s and beyond. Women’s Liberation feminists argued that the pageant focused on “problematic beauty standards” and reduced women to their physical appearance.

Bibliography

Simon, Bryant. Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Watson, E., ed. “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Riverol, Armando. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television. “Chapter 2: The Frolicking ’20s,” 10-26.

Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June 1, 2000): 105–26. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.2000.3401_105.x. 

“History.” Miss America. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://missamerica.org/history/.

 Latham, Angela J. 1995. “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity.’” Journal of Popular Culture 29 (3): 149–67. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x. 

Chapman, Mary. 1999. “Women and Masquerade in the 1913 Suffrage Demonstration in Washington.” Amerikastudien 44 (3): 343–55. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=755f8783-eb91-350f-b634-02d97c8d0cb5. 

Moore, Sarah J. 1997. “Making a Spectacle of Suffrage: The National Women Suffrage..” Journal of American Culture (01911813) 20 (1): 89. doi:10.1111/j.1542-734x.1997.00089.x.https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/c/7frumr/viewer/pdf/ve7e6ydlxr 

Jones, Jennifer. 1998. “The Beauty Queen as Deified Sacrificial Victim.” Theatre History Studies 18 (June): 99–106. https://research-ebsco-com.library2.ramapo.edu:2443/linkprocessor/plink?id=3696314d-a08a-3a3a-9756-878c3fa4a653.

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995. 

“Here Are the Winners in the Beauty Contest.” The Washington Post (1877–1922), July 24, 1921. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection, pg. 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.

“Camden Girl Is Chosen as Miss South Jersey for Pa. Geanta T Shore.” Camden Daily Courier, September 2, 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress.

“Seeks Beauty Contest Ban: Oklahoma Congressman Says Women Like Looks More Than Men.” New York Times, August 13, 1921, 13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times.

“ATTACKS BATHING REVIEW.: PREACHER SAYS ATLANTIC CITY EVENT ENDANGERS YOUTHFUL MORALS.” New York Times (1923–), September 11, 1923. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/attacks-bathing-review/docview/103107222/se-2.

“Y.W.C.A. Opens War on Beauty Contest; Calls Atlantic City Parade Peril to Girls.” New York Times (1923–), April 18, 1924. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/y-w-c-opens-war-on-beauty-contest-calls-atlantic/docview/103426053/se-2.

“New Queen of Beauty Has Not Bobbed Hair.” New Britain Herald, New Britain, CT, September 12, 1925. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014519/1925-09-12/ed-1/seq-1/

“Western Girl Wins Miss America Title: Miss Norma Smallwood of Tulsa.” Special to The New York Times. New York Times (1923–), September 11, 1926. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection, p. 15.

“CATHOLIC WOMEN’S RESOLUTION BANS BEAUTY CONTESTS: PROPOSALS THAT ATTACK EXHIBITION OF GIRLS BACKED BY 100. DELINQUENCY CITED; PARENTS BLAMED LEADERS IN WELFARE WORK SAY THEY FIND MENACE IN PULCHRITUDE SHOWS. CATHOLIC WOMEN HIT BEAUTY CONTESTS.” The Washington Post (1923–1954), September 27, 1927. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/catholic-womens-resolution-bans-beauty-contests/docview/149667923/se-2.

“Catholic Women Adopt Ban on Beauty Contests: Exploitation of ‘Feminine Pulchritude’ for ‘Commercial Purposes’ is Denounced in Resolution Approved Unanimously by National Council Convention. CATHOLIC WOMEN BAN BEAUTY COMPETITIONS.” The Washington Post (1923–1954), September 29, 1927. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/catholic-women-adopt-ban-on-beauty-contests/docview/149693598/se-2.

“Miss Illinois, Blonde, Wins Beauty West Contest: 16-Year-Old Unbobbed …” The Washington Post (1923–1954), September 10, 1927. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection.

Paul Thompson. Literary Suffragettes. [ca. 1913]. Topical Press Agency, Hulton Archive, Getty Images. Photograph.

L & M Ottenheimer, publisher. Liberty and Her Attendants – (Suffragette’s Tableau) in Front of Treasury Bldg. March 3, 1913 – Washington, D.C. National Woman’s Party Records. Library of Congress.

R.C. Maxwell Company. BOARDWALK. [CROWD LOOKING AT CAMERA], EASTER, MARCH 27, 1921. Maxwell No. 1555. R.C. Maxwell Company Records. David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Bettmann Archive. Contestants at the 1921 Pageant; Miss Atlantic City (Florence Burke), Miss Philadelphia, and Miss Washington, DC. [1921]. Photograph.

Bettmann Archive. Miss America 1927 Lois Delander of Joliet, Illinois. Photograph. 1927.

Bettmann Archive. Large Crowd During Street Parade. Original Caption: Atlantic City: Neptune and Miss America in the parade. Photograph.

Bettmann Archive. Pageant Attendees Posing Outdoors. Mr. & Mrs. Howard Chandler Christie & Miss Gorman at the Atlantic City Pageant. Photograph.

Bettmann Archive. Beauty Pageant Winner and Mythological Accomplice. Original Caption: Atlantic City, N. J.: Miss Margaret Gorman (Miss America) with Hudson Maxim as “Neptune” at the Atlantic City Beauty Pageant. Photograph.

Bettmann Archive. “Miss America Contestants Pose for Photograph.” Photograph.

Featured Image: Bettmann Archive. “American Beauty Pageants Winners. Far left Miss Mary Katherine Campbell (retained title); far right, Miss Margaret Gorman, Miss America in 1921 in gowns.” Photograph. Circa 1922. Bettmann Collection via Getty Images.

Additional Sources

“1920s.” Maxwell Did It!: Photographing the Atlantic City Boardwalk, 1920s-1950s. Duke University Libraries. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/maxwell/1920s.

“Beauty Pageant Origins and Culture.” American Experience. PBS. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/missamerica-beauty-pageant-origins-and-culture/.”

“Woman Suffrage Pageants.” National Park Service. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/suffrage-pageants.htm

PBS. “Miss America Timeline.” American Experience. Last modified March 3, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/miss-america-timeline/.

“History.” Miss America. Accessed March 20, 2025. https://missamerica.org/history/.

Ware, Susan. “Sashes and Suffrage.” New York Times, August 15, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/opinion/sashes-suffrage-19th-amendment.html.

Citations

1. R.C. Maxwell Company, BOARDWALK. [CROWD LOOKING AT CAMERA], EASTER, MARCH 27, 1921, Maxwell No. 1555, R.C. Maxwell Company Records, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University. ︎
2. Bryant Simon, Boardwalk of Dreams: Atlantic City and the Fate of Urban America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 19-24. ︎
3. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 85-86. ︎
4. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 32. ︎
5. Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 12. ︎
6. “Here Are the Winners in the Beauty Contest.” The Washington Post (1877-1922), July 24, 1921. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection, pg. 5. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. ︎
7. “Camden Girl Is Chosen as Miss South Jersey for Pa. Geanta T Shore.” Camden Daily Courier, September 2, 1921. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Library of Congress. ︎
8. Bettmann Archive, Pageant Attendees Posing Outdoors. Mr. & Mrs. Howard Chandler Christie & Miss Gorman at the Atlantic City Pageant; and Beauty Pageant Winner and Mythological Accomplice. Original Caption: Atlantic City, N. J.: Miss Margaret Gorman (Miss America) with Hudson Maxim as “Neptune” at the Atlantic City Beauty Pageant, Photographs. ︎
9. Riverol, Live from Atlantic City, 12-16. ︎
10. Riverol, Live from Atlantic City, 17-18. ︎
11. Bettmann Archive, Large Crowd During Street Parade. Original Caption: Atlantic City: Neptune and Miss America in the parade, Photograph. ︎
12. Bettmann Archive, Miss America 1927 Lois Delander of Joliet, Illinois, Photograph, 1927. ︎
13. Riverol, Live from Atlantic City, 22. ︎
14. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 169-171. ︎
15. Angela J. Latham, “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity,’” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 158. ︎
16. “ATTACKS BATHING REVIEW.: PREACHER SAYS ATLANTIC CITY EVENT ENDANGERS YOUTHFUL MORALS.” New York Times (1923-), Sep 11, 1923. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/attacks-bathing-review/docview/103107222/se-2. ︎
17. “Y.W.C.A. Opens War on Beauty Contest; Calls Atlantic City Parade Peril to Girls.” New York Times (1923-), Apr 18, 1924. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/historical-newspapers/y-w-c-opens-war-on-beauty-contest-calls-atlantic/docview/103426053/se-2. ︎
18. “Catholic Women Adopt Ban on Beauty Contests: Exploitation of “Feminine Pulchritude” for “Commercial Purposes” is Denounced in Resolution Approved Unanimously by National Council Convention. CATHOLIC WOMEN BAN BEAUTY COMPETITIONS.” The Washington Post (1923-1954), Sep 29, 1927. http://library.ramapo.edu:2048/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/catholic-women-adopt-ban-on-beauty-contests/docview/149693598/se-2 ︎
19. “Seeks Beauty Contest Ban: Oklahoma Congressman Says Women Like Looks More Than Men.” New York Times, August 13, 1921, 13. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times. ︎
20. Elwood Watson, ed., There She Is, Miss America: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 36-38. ︎
21. Elwood Watson and Darcy Martin, “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One,” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June 1, 2000): 107. ︎
22. “Miss Illinois, Blonde, Wins Beauty West Contest: 16-Year-Old Unbobbed …,” The Washington Post (1923–1954), September 10, 1927, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection; “New Queen of Beauty Has Not Bobbed Hair,” New Britain Herald (New Britain, CT), September 12, 1925, Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, Library of Congress, https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn82014519/1925-09-12/ed-1/seq-1/; “Western Girl Wins Miss America Title: Miss Norma Smallwood of Tulsa,” special to The New York Times, New York Times (1923–), September 11, 1926, p. 15, ProQuest Historical Newspapers: New Jersey Collection. ︎
23. L & M Ottenheimer, publisher, Liberty and Her Attendants – (Suffragette’s Tableau) in Front of Treasury Bldg. March 3, 1913 – Washington, D.C., National Woman’s Party Records, Library of Congress. ︎
24. Paul Thompson, Literary Suffragettes, ca. 1913, Topical Press Agency, Hulton Archive, Getty Images; and Bettmann Archive, Contestants at the 1921 Pageant; Miss Atlantic City (Florence Burke), Miss Philadelphia, and Miss Washington, DC, 1921, Photographs. ︎
25. Jennifer Jones, “The Beauty Queen as Deified Sacrificial Victim,” Theatre History Studies 18 (June 1998): 102. ︎
26. Mary Chapman, “Women and Masquerade in the 1913 Suffrage Demonstration in Washington,” Amerikastudien 44, no. 3 (1999): 344-345. ︎
27. Jones, “The Beauty Queen as Deified Sacrificial Victim,” 102. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

In the 1920s, American culture was increasingly becoming more secularized, creating tensions between modernity and traditional religious values. The first “Miss America” pageants embodied these conflicts, as it became both a target of religious resistance and a reflection of a callback to older ideas. Americans struggled to balance adapting to modernity while preserving their traditional beliefs and values. Religion was losing its influence on Americans with many standards straying away from the strictness of Victorian attitudes. Religion and Protestantism was no longer a dominant force in cultural norms and in efforts to maintain religion, urban churches started programs that created places of worship alongside spaces for social, recreational, and educational purposes. However, many religious leaders, including Protestant ministers and Jewish leaders, faced declining attendance and decreasing support for missionary efforts. These leaders viewed the popular culture of the 1920s, dominated by materialism and the pursuit of wealth, as a decline in religious values. Religious fundamentalists and Evangelical Christians also feared that the country was experiencing a moral and spiritual decline.¹ The first “Miss America” pageants of the 1920s serve as an example of an event that religious groups sought to oppose through protests, aiming to dismantle what they considered a moral decline. The “Miss America” pageant included a bathing suit competition, which many religious groups opposed. They sought to combat the rise of swimwear in the 1920s, particularly for women, viewing it as immoral and immodest. Moral outrage from clergymen contributed to the censorship of physical appearances on public beaches, as they insisted that women cover their knees.² This influenced the “Miss America” pageant because of its emphasis on “bathing beauties”. The pageant was met with further resistance with religious groups claiming it damaged the good choices, reputation, and morals of young women. Groups like Southern Baptists and the “Atlantic County Federation of Church Women”, joined in resistance and protest. Not only did they believe it damaged women’s morals, but they also viewed it as the exploitation of women for financial gain and corrupting them by encouraging rivalry among themselves.³ These protests are credited as having an important role in why the pageant was temporarily paused in 1928 through the early 30s.

Ironically, while traditional religious groups opposed the pageant for being “immoral”, it was an event that eagerly promoted a “traditional” and “conservative” idea of femininity. The “Miss America” pageant aimed to uphold the image of a more traditional woman, distancing itself from  the “New Woman,” represented by women in politics and flappers. Before the “Miss America” pageant was established in 1921, suffragettes held suffrage pageants. They dressed up as influential women in history, seeking to raise public awareness and funds for their political efforts.⁴ However, the “Miss America” pageant focused only on beauty, based on what men and the audience viewed as beautiful. In addition, the pageant strived to distance itself from the flapper image. Flappers were young, single women who strayed away from Victorian constraints by wearing bobbed hair, shorter and less shaped skirts, darker makeup, and smoked. In contrast, the “Miss America” pageant praised “non threatening” women who had conservative hairstyles such as longer hair, were more subservient, viewed beauty as an important goal, and demonstrated capability of being a good wife, homemaker, and mother.⁵ Contestants who had longer hair were more often praised than those with bobbed or bobbed-like hair. It was an important characteristic for “Miss America” to have, especially in the earlier competitions. Pageant organizers also tried to portray the event as “above alcohol” or other habits such as smoking. Overall, the pageant wished to portray its winners as symbols of what a 1920s American woman “should be and look like”. While religious traditionalists viewed it as immoral, the pageant still sought to revive a more traditional ideal of Victorian-like femininity and virtue.

Bibliography

Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.

Riverol, Armando. Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992.

Latham, Angela J. “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity.'” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 149–67. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x.

Watson, Elwood, and Darcy Martin. “The Miss America Pageant: Pluralism, Femininity, and Cinderella All in One.” Journal of Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (June 1, 2000): 105–26. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3840.2000.3401_105.x.  

Watson, E., ed. “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Bettmann Archive. Policewomen Checking Length Violations. Chicago, Illinois, 1921.

Bettmann Archive. 1924 Miss America from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ruth Malcomson. 1924.

Thomas, Bob. Cinema Personalities, 1923, American Actress Colleen Moore. Popperfoto/Getty Images, 1923.

Featured Photo: Atlantic Foto Service. Contestants of the 1925 Miss America Pageant. Atlantic City, New Jersey, 1925.

Citations

1. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 169-186. ︎
2. Angela J. Latham, “Packaging Woman: The Concurrent Rise of Beauty Pageants, Public Bathing, and Other Performances of Female ‘Nudity,’” Journal of Popular Culture 29, no. 3 (1995): 158, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-3840.1995.00149.x. ︎
3. Armando Riverol, Live from Atlantic City: The History of the Miss America Pageant Before, After, and in Spite of Television (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1992), 24. ︎
4. Elwood Watson, ed., “There She Is, Miss America”: The Politics of Sex, Beauty, and Race in America’s Most Famous Pageant (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 28-29. ︎
5. Watson, “There She Is, Miss America”, 32. ︎

grlynn

Grlynn is a Ramapo College senior majoring in history

Before the fire, Smyrna was a vibrant, diverse city, perhaps the most diverse within modern-day Turkey by the beginning of the 1920s. According to the most recent statistics before the city burned, there were one hundred and sixty-five thousand Turks, one hundred and fifty thousand Greeks, twenty-five thousand Armenians, twenty-five thousand Jews, and twenty thousand foreigners.¹ Compare this to Constantinople’s population, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, from a decade before, which had two hundred seventy nine thousand Muslims, sixty four thousand Greeks, twenty seven thousand Armenians, and 13 thousand Jews.² Smyrna’s demographics resembled those of an American city rather than one that might be part of an ethnic Greek or Turkish state. The city had four quarters: the Turkish/Muslim Quarter, Jewish Quarter, Armenian Quarter, and Greek/European Quarter. Although it would be very common to see all 4 groups outside of their quarters and mingling with each other. There was even a 5th group who resided outside of the city called the Levantines who were descendents of European immigrants that had started to assimilate into Turkish culture.³ 

Once WWI ended everyone knew that Smyrna was going to change hands, but the question was how would each of these groups fit into the state that would control Smyrna next. The Ottoman Empire, the state that governed Smyrna before, was on its last legs and the Greeks had plans to annex Western Turkey. Inside the Ottoman Empire a group of Turkish nationalists called the Young Turks, were becoming very popular and it seemed the Young Turks and the Greeks would soon be on a collision course for Smyrna. The Turks, the Greeks, and maybe even the Armenians knew what each of these states meant for them, but for the Jews it was different. They faced the same questions as the Jews in America during the 1920s: how to balance their Jewish identity with that of their state. Under the Ottoman Empire, Jews were Jews, as it wasn’t a nation-state, but under a Turkish or Greek state it was more complex. In America during the 1920s, Jews found ways to preserve their ethnic identity while embracing Americanization.⁴

The Greeks ended up being the first to make move on Smyrna after WWI ended. The Greeks at the Paris Peace conference of 1919 represented by their Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, claimed almost all of modern-day Western Turkey that bordered the Aegean Sea on the grounds that it was the historic lands of the Greeks and that many of those places had Greek majority populations. . Then on May 9 at a meeting of the big three Allied Powers, Britain, France, and the United States would decide to allow the Greeks to invade Smyrna to deter the Italians from gaining territory in Asia Minor. David Lloyd George brought up the idea to Venizelos by asking him the simple question of “Do you have troops available?”⁵ This simple question would have obvious consequences that the leaders of the big three all should of known but decided to ignore. By letting the Greeks invade they opened up Pandora’s box and the Greeks, Turks, and Armenians of Anatolia would pay a great price for it.

The Greek Invasion and Occupation of Smyrna

The Greeks invaded Smyrna on the May 15, 1919 and were greeted by the cheers of the Greek population. The Greeks had failed to plan ahead to secure the city though and the month that followed the invasion was chaos. The Greeks started looting the Turkish houses and massacres of both Turks and Greeks were committed. For a month there wasn’t even a Greek General in Smyrna.⁶

The Greek occupation and invasion of Smyrna would only last for about 3 years. The invasion only made the Turk and Greek Nationalists hate each other even more. With Greeks being resettled, Turks being kicked out, and the lower ranks of the military and Greek citizens committing violent acts against the Turks. ⁷ The Greeks decided to keep pushing East but eventually the Turks beat them back and pushed them all the way back to Smyrna. Turkish troops under the command of their nationalist commander, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, ended the Greek occupation of Smyrna on September, 9, 1922. This assured Smyrna and its diverse population that the city would be apart of a future Turkish state. But, a Turkish state was supposed to only include Turks so the question was now what would happen to the Greeks, Armenians, Levantine, and the other non-Turk populations of the city. 4 days later those population would figure out what the new Turkish leaders of the city wanted to do with them.

The Turkish Occupation

The Fire

In the afternoon on September 13, 1922 a small fire broke out in the Armenian quarter in Smyrna. This small fire would end up devouring the entire Greek and Armenians quarters of the city and heavily damaging the general European quarter of the city. This is the 1922 Fire of Smyrna. According to the Minnie Mills of the American Collegiate Institute she saw a Turkish soldier enter the building in the Armenian quarter where the first fire started and then exit with tins that containing fuel. Then soon after many other small fires started. She added that on this day the wind was blowing West away from the Turkish quarter. Mills also said that soon after Armenians start to crowd the streets but the Turks blocked the road and instructed them to go back into their houses. Mrs. King Birge who went to the top of the tower of the American Collegiate Institute also said she saw Turkish soldiers with fuel cans setting fires in the Armenian quarter of Smyrna. When George Horton, the American Consul in Smyrna, looked out his terrace on the afternoon of September 13 he saw a dark cloud of black smoke covering the city. ⁸ The fires in the Armenian quarter were only the beginning of the fire. The fire would spread to the Greek and European quarters and would last for 9 whole days.

The Americans weren’t the only ones to notice Turkish soldiers lighting fire to the Armenian quarter. A firemen who arrived to the scene of the first fire, Sargent Tchorbadjis, testified that he saw a Turkish solider lighting fire to the interior of a drawer in an Armenian house. Another firefighter, Emanuel Kastros, said he saw Turkish soldiers puring drums of petroleum in an Armenian;s house and when asked about it they said their orders were to light fire to the Armenian houses. By 2 PM almost the entire Armenian quarter was in flames and all the residents who didn’t burn in the fire or weren’t murdered by Turkish soldiers crowded the wharf. ⁹ The Armenians were now stuck in a huge crowd between the bay and the giant fire raging behind them. They would wait on the wharf for 9 days while they watched their homes and the city that they called home turn into ashes. The Armenians had lived mostly peacefully in Smyrna for centuries and now the forces that adhered to the foreign ideology of Nationalism had erased all of that history. They forced the Armenians to leave the only place they called home just because they weren’t considered Turks.

On the first day the Armenians weren’t the only ones who were in trouble. The British, the French, and the Americans had to also flee from the European quarter on the first day of the Fire. The Europeans and the Americans though had a safe far away place to retreat to. Any American, French, or British citizen was guaranteed a spot on a battleship of the coast away from the blazing heat and choking black smoke of the fire. For example, some French Catholic fathers from their Church that was on fire to the French Consulate where after that caught fire they were transferred to a French battleship.¹⁰

The Europeans and Americans did have a safe place to go to offshore but on their way there many tried to help the Greek and Armenian refugees. For example, George Horton held 2,000 refugees that consisted of Armenians, Americans, and Greeks. Horton had an American petty officer James Webster along with other American Marines guided Armenian, Greek, and American refugees to the wharf and protected them when Turkish soldiers started shooting at them on their way to the wharf.¹¹ Horton and the other Americans would end up using those same marines to push through the crowd at the wharf to get to the waterfront and leave on a ship.leaving the Another example, is when the French decided to take an Armenian girl and her immediate family onto their battleship after she showed up at the French consulate speaking great French. ¹²

By the end of the first day almost of the Armenians and Europeans had evacuated the city proper and were either stranded on the wharf or sailing back to their home countries. The Armenian and European quarters of the city were in ashes by the end of the day, but for the Greek quarter it was a different story. The Greeks had not totally evacuated the city yet as not the entire quarter was in flames and the Turks had been focusing on the Armenians all day so there were still safe places to hide in the Greek quarter. But, by the next day on September 14 the slight relief the Greeks felt would end. For example, Georgios Tsoubariots, an eleven year old Greek child at the time was hiding with his family in a Greek Church on the 13th but in the morning of the 14th bandits came with knifes and robbed them at knife point. After they fled to the inside of family tomb at a Greek Cemetery. Another Greek family, the Verkine family had survived hiding in their house the first night but on the second day the flames finally caught up to their house and they were forced to flee to the wharf.¹³

The Quay

Almost all of the refugees who were fleeing their burning homes ended up at the quay. The quay was indeed safe from the fire thanks to it being but at the quay there was much more to worry about than just the fire. Horton described the quay as he was sailing away on the night of the 13th as “a narrow water-front covered with a great throng of people-an ever increasing throng”.¹⁴ An even more detailed account by a British eyewitness, Mr Wallace, described the quay as the most tragic sight he ever saw. The quay had no food or water there and was crowded beyond capacity. They were so starved and exhausted that the fire no longer even panicked them. ¹⁵ According to the American vice-consul in the middle of the hunger, thirst, and exhausted refugees were armed Turks with clubs that were going through hitting everyone in sight.¹⁶

By the 19th of September conditions at the quay became even worse. Decaying corpses were spread among the hundreds of thousands of people stranded and disease was rampant thanks to contaminated food and water. The Allies had refused to use their ships in the Smyrna harbor to help the starving masses of refugees. Luckily, thanks to one man’s intense resolve to help the people on the quay they wouldn’t have to say their much longer. This man was Asa Jennings, an employee of Smyrna’s YMCA. Jennings through a combination of bluffing and pure luck had convinced the Greeks to put him in charge of all Greek ships in the Aegean and an American ship to escort them to Smyrna. By morning of September 24 his rescue fleet arrived at the quay.¹⁷

Jennings had made it to Smyrna with a fleet of Greek ships, but getting the ships to come was the easy part comparatively to his next task. There were hundreds of thousands of refugees on the quay who were desperate for help to escape the fire and only a limited amount of ships. The Turkish authorities didn’t make it easy at first for Jennings to rescue them and put severe restrictions on Jennings rescue effort. Eventually the Turkish authorities realized this was how they would get rid of the non-Turks of the new Turkish state and started helping the evacuation effort. All of the living refugees on the quay would be evacuated to Greece where refugees either or used a jumping off point to immigrate to other countries like France, the United States, and Canada.¹⁸

Aftermath

There are conflicting reports on the amount of the shear cost of human life the fire had caused. The lowest estimates of the time from the newspapers said 120,000 people had died. The United States had spent over 95 millions 1922 dollars on relief for the refugees of Smyrna.¹⁹ Later estimates said 100,000 people died while another 100,00 were deported to the interior.²⁰ Newspapers in America and England at the time did talk about the death and destruction, but it was a lot more focused on the American and British destruction that was done. The front page of the Washington Times from September 16, 1922 said in big letters “U.S. Suffers Loss of 15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna” and under that in small letters they put “300,000 homeless.²¹ The Birmingham Post in England titled their article on December 2, 1924 “£20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims. The article was about how an insurance company went to court to have it decide if the fire was an accident or not as his clients were trying claiming it wasn’t an accident to reap the insurance benefits.²² The American, British, and other European governments were pushing the narrative that the Turks started the fire yet here were British businessmen trying to go against all the proof that those governments had stated just so they didn’t have to suffer the loss of property in a place that was in conflict for years before the fire.

At the end of the day the specific human and monetary cost of the damage doesn’t matter. What matters is the Turks purposefully set the fire to purge all the non-Turks from one of the most diverse cities in Asia Minor by almost all accounts of the time. What matters is once the fire ended hundreds of thousands of people were now homeless and kicked out of the only home they ever knew. What matters is that almost the entire cultural history of two populations who lived in Smyrna peacefully for centuries was erased in the matter of weeks. What matters is that Turkish historians still deny today that the Turkish military had any involvement in the fire despite the hundreds of personal accounts of the fire by Greeks, Armenians, and other who say otherwise.

Sadly in Turkey and Greece the animosity between the two populations only grew until the Greco-Turkish war ended with the Treaty of Lausanne and the Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations in 1923. The convention didn’t transfer though just the Greek and Turkish populations in each state like it is popularly thought. The text of the agreement specifically says that Greek Orthodox Christians in Turkey will go to Greece and Muslims in Greece will go to Turkey.²³ There were ethnic Greeks and other ethnicities in Turkey who were Greek Orthodox and Muslims in Greece who weren’t Turkish and so they got caught up in the fight and had to leave their homes. 1.6 million people left their homes and transferred to their new declared countries as said by a bunch of leaders who had not asked them whether they wanted to move or not. The Fire of Smyrna was only a small part and precursor to this much larger conflict.

The Fire of Smyrna and the 1920s

Smyrna before the fire could very much be described as a “melting pot” just like how many people described America in the 20s. Both the people of Smyrna and all of the over the world, especially in America were trying figure whether being a “melting pot” was a good or bad. In the 1920s it was decided in many places including America and Smyrna that this was bad and their countries needed to be more homogenous. The Turks did this with the Fire of Smyrna and the population transfer at the end of it. The Americans did this by enacting immigration legislation and calling for the Americanization of immigrants that were already there.²⁴ The Greeks, Turks, and other ethnicities were also forced with Grecification and Turkification when they arrived in their newly assigned countries. In Greece the refugees were forced to live in poverty in the worst quarter of Athens, but they forged a community there.²⁵ The same was true for American immigrants like Mexicans who lived in poor conditions but forged a community through that.²⁶

Another big theme of the 1920s persistent in the narrative of the Fire of Smyrna was the rise of cooperate power. American and other European corporations had a lot interests in Smyrna as seen by the earlier mentioned news articles. In the 20s it was a popular opinion that business should just be allowed to pursue their interests with as government interference as possible and was favorable towards business in general.²⁷ This explains the context behind why so many foreign newspapers were covering the loss suffered by business in the fire because many people genuinely wanted to know about it and probably thought businesses should be able to recoup their losses from the fire.

Another big theme of the 1920s persistent in the narrative of the Fire of Smyrna was the rise of cooperate power. American and other European corporations had a lot interests in Smyrna as seen by the earlier mentioned news articles. In the 20s it was a popular opinion that business should just be allowed to pursue their interests with as government interference as possible and was favorable towards business in general.²⁷ This explains the context behind why so many foreign newspapers were covering the loss suffered by business in the fire because many people genuinely wanted to know about it and probably thought businesses should be able to recoup their losses from the fire.

Significance

The Fire of Smyrna is just one small example of the many crimes that were committed before and after the Greco-Turkish War by both governments, the consequences of Nationalism, and European intervention. Nationalism was a European invented ideology that had spread to one of the few places in the world where multiple different peoples, ethnicities, and religions had gotten a long for almost a thousand years. All over the Middle East in the post WWI era massacres just the like Fire of Smyrna motivated by Nationalism. Hundreds of thousands of people died then and still die today because Europeans decided to spread the ideology that caused them to fight the biggest and deadliest war to ever be fought in history at the time to the places they colonized and traded with. Massacres like the Fire of Smyrna should not just be used an example of why genocide needs to be prevented, but why Nationalism is a flawed ideology that leads to conflict not peace. Neither the Turks nor the Greeks started the conflict that led up to the Fire of Smyrna, the Europeans started. Its the same for almost every other conflict in the Middle East. One people for one land always leads to crimes like the Fire of Smyrna happening whether that was the intention or not. People need to realize in battles all over the world that the battles they are fighting are not their battles, but the battles foreign nations wanted them to fight. They need stop blaming each other for starting conflicts and instead blame the real culprits, European colonial powers.

The Fire of Smyrna on a Map of Modern Day Izmir

Additional Resources

• Greek Genocide Resource Center provides online access to resources on the atrocities the Ottoman Empire and Turkey committed against from 1914 – 1923.
• Armenian National Institute is a website dedicated to the study of the Armenian Genocide.
• Levantine Heritage Foundation is a website dedicated the study and preservation of the communities in the Levant from the 1600s to the 1900s. The website has a lot of really amazing information about the Greek and Armenian communities in Smyrna before the fire and was one of my main resources when making my map.

Footnotes

1. George Horton, The Blight of Asia: an Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with the True Story of the Burning of Smyrna, (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926), 101. ︎
2. Kemal H. Karpat, Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics, (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 102. ︎
3. ︎
4. Lynn Dumenil, The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), 260-262. ︎
5. Michael Llewyn Smith, Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor 1919-1922, (New York: St Martins Press, 1973), 78-81. ︎
6. ︎
7. ︎
8. Horton, Blight of Asia, 144-145. ︎
9. Giles Milton, Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: Destruction of a Christian City in the Islamic World, (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 307-309. ︎
10. Ibid, 308. ︎
11. Ibid, 312. ︎
12. Horton, Blight of Asia, 152. ︎
13. Milton, Paradise Lost, 329-332. ︎
14. Horton, Blight of Asia, 152. ︎
15. “Smyrna’s Last Days: A Manchester Man’s Experience” in The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom: A File of Overwhelming Evidence, Denouncing the Misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and Showing Their Responsibility for the Horrors of Smyrna, ed. Lysimachos, Oeconomos, (Plymouth, UK: The Mayflower Press, 1922), 52-54. ︎
16. Milton, Paradise Lost, 336. ︎
17. Ibid, 354-360. ︎
18. Ibid, 361-373. ︎
19. Horton, The Blight of Asia, 173-175. ︎
20. Milton, Paradise Lost, 373. ︎
21. “US Suffer Loss of $15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna”, Washington TImes, (Washington D.C., District of Columbia), Sep 16, 1922. ︎
22. “The Law Courts: Sequel to the Great Fire At Smyrna: £20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims”, Birmingham Post, (Birmingham, UK), 2 Dec, 1924. ︎
23. Treaty of Lausanne IV: Convention Concerning The Exchange on Greek and Turkish Populations, (Hellenic Resources Network, 1923), ︎
24. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 203-206. ︎
25. Milton, Paradise Lost, 374. ︎
26. Dumenil, The Modern Temper, 251. ︎
27. Ibid, 32-34. ︎
28. Ibid, 32-34. ︎

Bibliography

• Dumenil, Lynn. The Modern Temper: American Culture and Society in the 1920s. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.
• Horton, George. The Blight of Asia: An Account of the Systematic Extermination of Christian Populations by Mohammedans and of the Culpability of Certain Great Powers; with a True Story of the Burning of Smyrna. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1926.
• Karpat, Kemal H. Ottoman Population 1830-1914: Demographic and Social Characteristics. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
• Milton, Giles. Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922 – The Destruction of Islam’s City of Tolerance. New York: Basic Books, 2008.
• Oeconomos, Lysimachos. The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom: A File of Overwhelming Evidence, Denouncing the Misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and Showing Their Responsibility for the Horrors of Smyrna. Plymouth, UK: The Mayflower Press, 1922.
• Smith, Michael Llewellyn. Ionian Vision: Greece in Asia Minor, 1919-1922. New York: St Martins Press, 1973.
• The Law Courts: Sequel to the Great Fire At Smyrna: £20,000,000 Involved in Insurance Claims”. Birmingham Post.(Birmingham, UK). 2 Dec, 1924. ︎
• “US Suffer Loss of $15,000,000 in Great Fire Sweeping Smyrna”, Washington Times. (Washington D.C., District of Columbia). Sep 16, 1922.

Towards the very beginning of 1925, the Tennessee state legislature approved a bill that banned the teaching of any theory that went against the story of Divine Creation, as taught in the Bible. John Scopes, a high school science teacher living and working in Dayton, Tennessee, agreed to be put on trial for violating the law in order to bring attention to its unconstitutional basis. 

Throughout the trial, both Clarence Darrow, Scopes’ attorney, and William Jennings Bryan, the prosecutor representing the state of Tennessee, interviewed and cross-examined several witnesses. The document below features portions of Darrow’s cross-examinations of four witnesses, the superintendent of the high school, two of Scopes’ students, and an esteemed member of the community. The written transcript of the witnesses’ testimonies proves the absurdity of the Tennessee law and helps demonstrate why Scopes got off with the most inconsequential punishment for the crime. In regard to the larger narrative of the 1920s, this record demonstrates the transition in America from a country based on religious fundamentalism to one with secular beliefs and institutions.     

Record of Witness Testimony Document

Document Text

VIII

The Witnesses

Having presented the opening statement of the prosecution, the State called upon its first witness, Superintendent White of the Dayton public schools. He testified that he had talked with Mr. Scopes¹ the day before the latter’s arrest:

“I told him that he had violated the law, but he said he had to teach science², and the law was unconstitutional anyway.”

On cross-examination, the witness admitted that the textbook, Hunter’s “Civic Biology³,” from which the defendant taught, had been specified for school use by the State School Book Commission.

When Mr. Darrow⁴ read sections from this book concerning evolution, Mr. Stewart⁵ offered a King James version of the Bible in evidence.⁶ Mr. Hays⁷ objected, asking: “What is the Bible? Who is to say this King James version is the Bible? The prosecution must tell us.” When the Court overruled the objection, the Bible was admitted as an exhibit.⁸  

Howard Morgan, 14 years of age, a pupil of Mr. Scopes, testified that the defendant had told his class that “in the beginning the earth was too hot for any life, it had cooled off, then the sea and land were formed, plant life in the sea began with a one-celled animal, which finally evoluted until it got bigger and a land animal and then got to be a man”; and that the teacher had classified man as a mammal, along with horses, cats, dogs, and other animals.

Cross-examined by Mr. Darrow, the boy could not tell what his teacher had meant by “classified.”

Mr. Darrow-He didn’t say a cat became a man, did he?

Howard-He said that man had reasoning powers and the other animals didn’t.

Mr. Darrow-There’s no doubt about that [Laughter], but we’ll let it pass if he said it. Did he tell you mammals were cats, dogs, elephants, horses, and whales?

Howard-I don’t know about whales.

Mr. Darrow-Never saw a whale suckle its young?

Howard-No, sir.

Mr. Darrow-Did he ever tell you anything else wicked?

Howard-Mr. Scopes said the earth was once a molten mass of liquid.

Mr. Darrow-That it melted?

Howard- Yes, sir.

Mr. Darrow-That it slowly cooled, a crust formed, soul came, grass grew, the first life in the sea developed into the highest form, man? That’s about what he taught?

Howard-Yes, sir.

Mr. Darrow-Did it hurt you any?

Howard-No, sir.

Harry Shelton, 17, on direct examination testified about as Howard did as to the Scopes teaching, and on cross-examination said his teacher had told him all life came from a single cell.

Mr. Darrow-Any one ever tell you different?

Harry-No, sir.

Mr. Darrow-You, a church member, still belong, still believe in church although you were told all life comes from a single cell?

Harry-Yes, sir.⁹

F. E. Robinson¹⁰, owner of the Dayton drug store, testified that he had sold the biological textbook in question for several years.

Mr. Darrow-Notice any signs of moral deterioration in the community since you’ve been selling them?

Mr. Robinson-No. [Laughter]   

Here the state, although it had five other witnesses ready, rested its case.¹¹

Sources

• Allen, Leslie H. Bryan and Darrow at Dayton. The Record and Documents of the “Bible-Evolution Trial”. New York: Arthur Lee & Company, 1925.
• HathiTrust. “Bryan and Darrow at Dayton: the Record and Documents of the “Bible-Evolution Trial“. University of Michigan. Accessed April 2021.

Additional Sources

• American Civil Liberties Union. “State of Tennessee V. Scopes.” ACLU. Accessed April 2021.
• Millstein, Roberta L. “Evolution.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2019.
• PublicBroadcasting Service. “John Scopes.” American Experience, PBS. Accessed February 2021.
• “Tom Stewart.” Wikipedia. Last modified December 19, 2020.
• “Why the King James Bible of 1611 Remains the Most Popular Translation in History.” The History Channel. Last modified April 16, 2019.

Rachel Olivo

Rachel is a junior at Ramapo College of New Jersey taking Discovering Digital History in the Spring of 2021. She is studying History and Education and is looking forward to becoming a teacher after graduating.

The 1920s is a decade in which an enormous amount of historians have contributed to the ongoing discussions surrounding the time period. While some praise the decade as a time of great accomplishment, progress and prosperity following World War I, others view the 1920s with criticism. As a historian, the 1920s can be analyzed through a lens of social, political, cultural and even religious perspectives; all leading to a clearer picture of what the so-called “roaring twenties” was actually like for all kinds of people.

In 2012 American historian of ethnicity and immigration in the United States, Marni Davis, wrote the book Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition. In her book Davis looks at how Jewish Americans engaged with Prohibition in the 1920s. She breaks down how the Jewish religious exemption worked in favor of immigrants as they became sources of a newly formed underground economy. Despite mass immigration and the industrial revolution that brought different ethnicities into urban centers like New York City, ethnic and religious minorities continued to face discrimination and alienation from white Americans in the 1920s. Jews in particular faced hurdles due to their religion, making it increasingly more difficult to fully assimilate into American society. In her work, Davis is able to capture the Jewish-American experience during the 1920s and paint a picture of what it was like for a religious group to travel upwards in social rank due to a legal loophole provided by their religion. 

The idea of “becoming American” is not new in terms of the historiography of the 1920s, yet Davis is able to bring a novel perspective by connecting Jewish-Americans to prohibition and how the two actually worked together to provide a bath for assimilation. Although prohibition was not enforced specifically against Jews, Davis’s work showcases the ingenuity of Jewish immigrants during a dry period in American history. Davis pulls sources from historians of the 1920s, immigration and the anti-alcohol movement. In doing so, Jews and Booze offers a dynamic take on one of the paths taken by an immigrant group during this time to assimilate into the greater American society.

During the 21st century many historians began to analyze how immigration and women fit into the puzzle of the 1920s. Books such as At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During the Exclusion Era, 1882 – 1943 by Erika Lee and journal articles like “Nationalism, Immigration Control, and the Ethnoracial Remapping of America in the 1920s” written by Mae M. Ngai began to look at how different ethnic groups were experiencing American society during the decade. In doing so, historians and readers can better understand how Americanization occurred in the beginning of the 20th century, and what attributes or stereotypes associated with certain ethnicities stem from that group’s process of assimilation.

Jews and Booze: Becoming American in the Age of Prohibition provides readers with a comprehensive exploration of the prohibition era with an emphasis on how politics and practices impacted Jewish-Americans and the Jewish community. Historian Marni Davis is able to highlight how Jews during the 1920s utilized the anti-alcohol movement to their advantage, securing their ledge in the climb towards acceptance in American society. 

Lauren S

Senior History and American Studies student at Ramapo College of New Jersey enrolled in Discovering Digital History course taught by Dr. Hajo during Spring 2021.

The “Roaring Twenties” was one of the most dramatic decades that the United States has ever seen. Every year had its fair share of important movements, events, and people, all creating significant changes. There seemed to be nothing else that could surprise the American public. Yet, only a few months into 1925, there was an event that caught the attention of the American public and of those living across the Atlantic ocean.

In March of 1925, Tennessee state legislatures passed the Butler Act. The Butler Act banned the teaching of evolution in all public and private educational institutions. “…Any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible…” was a misdemeanor with a fine of up to $500.¹ The American Civil Liberties Union, an organization created to protect the individual rights of American citizens, disliked the passing of the Butler Act. As a result, the ACLU responded by offering to defend any teacher charged under the law.² Yet, instead of waiting for a teacher to break the law, the organization started looking for one willing to challenge it in court. After all, the goal of the ACLU was to get the law overturned by the Supreme Court for being unconstitutional.³ 

As the ACLU searched for a volunteer, businessmen in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee worked out a plan. Dayton was in an economic slump at the time and the town’s “movers and shakers” believed that a controversial trial could help.⁴ Public attention from the trial would undoubtedly bring in money and breathe life back town. Out of all the teachers in the town, the businessmen decided that a young, first-year teacher named John Scopes was their best option. 

John Scopes

By the spring time, John Scopes had just concluded his first year at Rhea County High School. He taught science and coached football, making him the perfect candidate to challenge the Butler Act.⁵ The local businessmen did not waste any time and so they approached Scopes with their plan.

Although Scopes admitted he could not remember actually teaching evolution in his classes, he agreed.⁶ Like many science teachers, he beloved in the theory of evolution over the theory of Divine Creation. Therefore, on May 7, 1925, Scopes was arrested and charged with the criminal activity of teaching evolution.⁷ 

Before the Trial

Although his arrest was intentional, Scopes still needed a good lawyer. As promised, the ACLU became involved and asked renown criminal defense lawyer Clarence Darrow to defend Scopes.⁸ Darrow would work alongside Arthur Garfield Hays, the ACLU’s General Counsel.⁹ On the opposing side was William Jennings Bryan, a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and former Secretary of State.¹⁰ Bryan was also notorious for his passionate, fundamentalist Christian beliefs.¹¹ Thus, for Bryan, proving Scopes’ guilt was more than political, it was personal.

Much to the delight of Dayton’s businessmen, news of the trial quickly spread across the United States. In fact, news of the upcoming trial was so big that it spread overseas to many European countries.¹² Scopes’ arrest in May brought radio and newspaper reporters, politicians, and tourists from all over the world to Dayton.¹³

While Dayton’s fame did not conclude with the trial’s verdict, the peak of all the activity occurred before the trial and while the court was in session. Food venders, musicians, street preachers, and other performers followed the reporters to Dayton.¹⁴ Soon the small, quiet town developed a carnival-like atmosphere. A preforming chimpanzee even came to entertain the growing crowd of people. It was then that the serious and important trial turned into a circus and was given the name the Scopes “Monkey” Trial.¹⁵ 

The Court’s Proceedings and the Verdict

Finally, on July 10, 1925, the Scopes “Monkey” Trial began. On each day of the trial, roughly a thousand observers and reporters packed themselves into the tiny Rhea County Courthouse.¹⁶ Those who had not made the trip to Tennessee could listen to the court’s proceedings from the comfort of their home. Scopes’ trial was the very first trial to be broadcasted on live radio.¹⁷ 

The trial would be overlooked by Judge John T. Raulston, a conservative, Christian, believer of the Butler Act. Raulston began each court session with a mandatory prayer and refused to let many of Darrow’s witnesses take the stand.¹⁸ These witnesses included scientists and evolutionary experts who could defend Scopes.¹⁹ Thus, Darrow was forced to be creative in his defense. Darrow asked Bryan to take the stand as an expert on the Bible. For several days Darrow interrogated Bryan, asking him about the literal interpretation of the Bible.²⁰ Unfortunately for Bryan, he unknowingly walked right into Darrow’s trap. Darrow tricked Bryan into making statements that contradicted his own beliefs and made him seem foolish.²¹ The jury decided that Scopes was guilty of teaching evolution but he was only fined $100, the minimum amount for the crime.²³ At first, the verdict excited the ACLU because they could appeal to the next level of courts. However, the Tennessee state supreme court overturned the jury’s verdict on a technicality.²⁴ The ACLU would have to find another teacher willing to fight the law all the way to the Supreme Court. In the end, the young teacher was found innocent and the $100 fine was quickly forgotten about.

Significance

Given public interest regarding the Scopes Trial, it is obvious that it had a major impact on the greater narrative of the 1920s. While Bryan won the initial trial, Darrow’s defense won over the American people. Darrow successfully challenged the fundamental beliefs of the Bible. His defense also contested the idea that Divine Creation was the only theory acceptable enough to be taught in schools. Ultimately, the trial highlighted the divide in the United States between modern science and fundamentalism, the word of the Bible.  

I believe that the story of the Scopes “Monkey” Trial reinforces modern ideas and opinions about the 1920s. The “Roaring Twenties” was a decade of rapid change, especially considering all the public challenges to the status-quo. From speakeasies, to flappers, to the cultural revolution that gave us jazz music, the Scopes Trial seems to fit right in as it too demanded change.

Why did I Choose the Scopes “Monkey” Trial?

Out of all the events that occurred during the 1920s, I choose to explore the Scopes Trial. Like many others, I was drawn in by the mass publicity of the event and the conflicting descriptions of a legal trial and a circus. Moreover, as a future teacher myself, I was interested in looking at the involvement of religion in a public school classroom. Especially because today, teaching religious perspectives instead of fact-based ones is essentially prohibited.  

Bibliography

• American Civil Liberties Union. “State of Tennessee V. Scopes.” ACLU. Accessed February 2021.
• Cameron, Jacquelyn and Randy Moore. “Exploring the Scopes ‘Monkey’ Trial in Dayton, Tennessee: A Guide to People & Places.” The American Biology Teacher 77, No. 5 (2015): 333-337. Doi:10.1525/abt.2015.77.5.3.
• Cutlip, Kimbra. “The Scopes Trial Redefined Science Journalism and Shaped it to What it is Today.” Smithsonian Magazine online. Last modified July 10, 2015.
• Featured Image: University of Tennessee Libraries. “Darrow addressing jury.” Accessed March 2021.
• Office of the Historian. “Biographies of the Secretaries of the State: William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925).” Office of the Historian, United States of America Department of the State. Accessed February 2021.
• Public Broadcasting Service. “John Scopes.” American Experience, PBS. Accessed February 2021. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/monkeytrial-john-scopes/.
• “Tennessee Evolution Statutes.” University of Missouri – Kansas City. Accessed February 2021.

Rachel Olivo

Rachel is a junior at Ramapo College of New Jersey taking Discovering Digital History in the Spring of 2021. She is studying History and Education and is looking forward to becoming a teacher after graduating.