First Miss America Chosen in September, 1921

The first Miss America contest took place in September 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The first photo shows three contestants (left to right), Miss Atlantic City (Florence Burke), Miss Philadelphia, and Miss Washington, D.C., (Margaret Gorman). Contestants modeled their bathing suits, and finally 16-year-old Miss Margaret Gorman was announced as the first Miss America. Miss Gorman was a model and was participating as Miss District of Columbia

Margaret Gorman Cahill would die in Bowie, Md., at the age of 90. Here’s part of her obituary as written by the Associated Press. To read the rest of the story, go to www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-10-05-mn-53656-story.html.

Margaret Gorman Cahill, who became the first Miss America in 1921 and later said, “I really want to forget the whole thing,” is dead at age 90.

Mrs. Cahill died Sunday of cardiac arrest and pneumonia at a nursing home in Bowie, Md., a Washington suburb.

“Life has been extremely, I say extremely, kind,” she said in a 1980 interview. But of her experience as a beauty queen, she said: “I never cared to be Miss America. It wasn’t my idea. I am so bored by it all. I really want to forget the whole thing.”