Stunning pageant photographs show the first ever Miss Americas and bathing beauties from the 1920s. (brown, shoulders)

[Opsimathia]

Originally Posted by Riverboat Gambler

You missed the point. Those 20's pics are so obvious those women never worked out a day in their life. Just not eating doesn't count. You can tell who hits the treadmill and pumps iron. Modern curvy is hot. 20's curvy isn't to me. Those late teens early twenties girls have worse bodies than women two, three or even four times their age nowdays.

Any Bangles fans? 53

http://i562.photobucket.com/albums/s...T/IMG_2412.jpg

They don't look like they did anything period. Muscles were not fashionable and considered manly back then. I have no idea how people looked that flabby on unprocessed food and real old school housework.
How is that even possible? I understand the teeth and the hair. But if these were poor girls, wouldn't they have some muscle to them just from doing daily chores or working in factories?

[KathrynAragon]

Our standards of beauty change over time. Life spans back then were a lot shorter, so psychologically I think people aged or considered themselves and others as "old" faster.

I look at photos of my family and notice that back in the forties and fifties, women over age 35 dressed like old women! My grandmother was divorced in her thirties and never remarried. Though she was a HOTTIE - beautiful smooth skin, thick red hair, large expressive dark eyes, and a show stopping figure - she began dressing in a matronly fashion in her thirties and never would have DREAMED of dressing any differently. She did not ever dye her hair either - when it went gray in her fifties, she just let it go gray. (It ended up being a beautiful white, but my gosh, she was gray from fifty on - I can't imagine it.)

I am fifty years old now - but my life expectancy is about 87. That means I have probably about forty more years of life ahead of me. I cannot IMAGINE classifying myself as an "older woman" with this much life left in me. Besides that, I feel great. Here are some differences in society's expectations and standards for middle aged women, from my family album:

Here is my grandmother, and my favorite aunt, with me as a newborn. My grandmother was about forty five and my aunt was even younger. They look like they are in their sixties! Funny thing is, they were both actually very good looking women:



Here's my mom -with me and my firstborn, at the same age - notice the difference? I think my mom looks great - young, vibrant, fashionable (for the 1980s):



Here's my grandmother at age fifty - notice the gray hair, old hairstyle, matronly glasses, etc. You may not be able to tell it from this photo, but she actually has great skin - very few wrinkles. I inherited this from her.


Here I am at age fifty - same skin as my grandmother, same complexion, eye color, and original hair color, and I would be gray if I didn't dye my hair. But I DO dye my hair, and I wear contacts rather than glasses, and I don't dress like Aunt Bea from Mayberry! I also don't think I dress or look inappropriate for my age - I look about like a 2012 fifty year old grandmother. Our expectations change with our societal expectations.


My grandmother was very athletic and active - she climbed Mt Fuji in Japan at age fifty, and mowed her lawn with a push mower till she was well into her 80s. She was fit and trim, and I think she would have looked very much like I do now if she'd been born into our generation.

[2cold]

I wonder how they curled their hair back then without heat styling tools.

Rag rollers
https://s3.amazonaws.com/luuux-origi...ls-on-head.jpg
Marcel waves were very popular in the 20's, similar to finger waves, achieved with hot curling irons, though by the 20's the irons were heated by electricity - but in a salon, not at home.

But if these were poor girls, wouldn't they have some muscle to them just from doing daily chores or working in factories?

Many, many poor working girls were office workers, and working in factories is not muscle building, those girls were sitting or standing doing assembly work. Daily chores? This was the 20's, these girls weren't pulling water from a well or stream or pumping the kitchen pump, they had sinks with faucets.

Working out? Women with muscles would have been thought of as ugly or lesbians. By the 20's it was fashionable to be slender, but God forbid, have muscles, that was for men. Ever seen any film or photos from the Nazi era in the 30's, showing young women doing bends and stretches with a ball or stick? That was exercise of the day. Athletic girls, if they were upper middle class and above, rode bikes or played tennis, swam or rode horseback. They had free time and money. Team sports like high school or college basketball although played, weren't exactly popular.

[2cold]

Good pictures Kathryn.
I'm 61 and when I look at Jean Stapleton in All in the Family, I keep reminding myself that her character Edith was only in her 40's. She looked older than I do now!

[xxbabeechick]

Kathryn you look great!

[KathrynAragon]

Thanks, guys. I really think my grandmother would have looked just like me had she been part of my generation. It's funny how standards and expectations change over the decades.

[calipoppy]

Originally Posted by jerseygal4u

Most of the women look mixed or light skinned.
Where are the dark skinned beauties from the past?

Victorian Glamour!!

[Stickytoffee]

Originally Posted by calipoppy

Victorian Glamour!!

Still chic! Where do you get these pictures from? Are they pictures of your family?

[calipoppy]

Originally Posted by Stickytoffee

Still chic! Where do you get these pictures from? Are they pictures of your family?

I actually have a lot of beautiful photos like these of my own ancestors but I never post photos from my family's private collection online.

There are a lot of different blogs/sites dedicated to preserving the beautiful images of African Americans during different eras throughout our nation's history in order to acknowledge the diversity in the stories of our experiences.

[Pear Martini]

Originally Posted by KathrynAragon

Right on! And their hair styles were so ornate - and they got to wear the cutest HATS!

I LOVE the cute hats they used to wear