At the 1984 Miss America Pageant, Vanessa Williams (left) became the first African American to win the crown. Runner-up Suzette Charles (right) held the title for two months after Williams resigned. AP/Wide World Photos. Reproduced by permission.

The Miss America Pageant has been part of American popular culture since 1921. Since its beginning, the pageant has reflected the changing social values of the population, although usually more slowly than the rest of the population. Issues such as racial equality and social conscience have only become a reality in the pageant since the early 1980s. Over the years, contestants have been 1920s flappers (see entry under 1920s—Fashion in volume 2), then glamour girls, then scholars and, by the 1980s, social activists. The pageant is often ridiculed as out of step with the times. Even so, Americans still watch the pageant on television (see entry under 1940s...