Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
1922 fair judges beauties, babies
The 1922 Arkansas State Fair was held in Little Rock right where it was held in 1921.
No, that was not on the current State Fairgrounds off Roosevelt Road. And it was not in Fair Park. Nor was it in Forest Park in the Heights. MacArthur Park? Nope.
It used a long slope and a broad hill near today’s Arkansas School for the Deaf and Arkansas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired. The state fair main entrance gate in 1921 and 1922 was on West Markham Street at Thayer Street.
Not that anybody should care about this except students of history, teachers of history and the retired folks who are, let’s say, tourists of history. All the rest of us need only be vaguely aware that the state fair moved around, and it wasn’t always in Little Rock. Old News got too excited about this years ago, when the column was young and didn’t know up from down yet. (See arkansasonline. com/96old and, for good measure, arkansasonline.com/1010pulco.)
A curious feature of the nine-day 1921 state fair is how it was hailed as the “first” Arkansas State Fair, even though the first Arkansas State Fair was in November 1868 about where 17th Street meets Center Street in Little Rock today. Compounding the confusion, the 1922 fair was presented as the second Arkansas State Fair.
But let it go. Instead, let’s talk about the livestock judging.
On its “Society and Clubdom Section” page Aug. 13, 1922, the Arkansas Democrat announced it was working with the State Fair Association to locate the state’s most photogenic girl. This Queen of Arkansas would formally open the state fair gates Oct. 9, the first day of 1922’s seven-day fair.
A court of six lesser ranked beauties would attend the queen. All seven would be selected through a time-efficient method, the inspection of photographs. Subsequent news stories explained that the judges would grant no personal interviews because such would be unfair to “outsider” entrants who couldn’t afford train fare to Little Rock.
“The awards will be made on general attractiveness, by disinterested judges,” the paper promised. They were Mrs. Will Henniger of the Henniger music studio; Charles Evans, secretary of the Central Supply Co.; and T.S. Shannon of the Turner-Shannon Stove Co. And who better to judge female beauty than a stove merchant?
The contest was open to every girl in the state … who could acquire an 8-by-10-inch print and mount it on a mat no larger that 11 by 14 inches. Also, that photo must be no more than 12 months old and free from “colorings.” Names and addresses should accompany the photos.
About 300 women sent in photos, and the paper published collages of their mugs in the weeks before the fair. Outof-town entries far exceeded those of Little Rock residents. The paper reported that “the small-town photos were a revelation to the Beauty Contest editor and prove conclusively that the ‘country girl’ is quite capable of holding her own against her city rivals.”
Prizes included entertainments for the queen and her maids. Besides receiving free railroad fares, “during the two days that the queen and her maids will be the guests of the Arkansas Democrat and the State Fair Association, they will be the center of such social gatherings as a reception in the governor’s office, a grand ball and a ‘coronation ceremony’ which will rival the splendor of European court scenes.”
QUEEN FOR 2 DAYS
At first planned for the steps of the state Capitol, the coronation Oct. 9 actually happened at the Old State House. Whoever described the scene for the Democrat just about dyed the page purple.
Gov. Thomas McRae respectfully crowned Miss Anna Marie Slaughter, of England and Arkansas City (and formerly of Little Rock), “on the picturesque portico of the historic War Memorial building with a bright morning sun streaming through the tops of majestic trees, whose shadows flung a lace-like pattern upon its snow white columns.”
The queen — a well built blonde with deep dimples and large blue eyes — proceeded “up the venerable approach to the Old State House steps followed by her six maids of honor who rivalled their queen in womanly loveliness.” These beauties were from Little Rock, Russellville, Hazen, Judsonia, Conway and Fort Smith. One of them, the Little Rock lady, was not a maid but a matron, Mrs. Julius C. Bemberg of 1110 E. 13th St.
The throng fell into “an awed hush as the queen mounted the steps against a background of palms.”
The scene was “tinged with a glamour of romance that recalled the mystic charms of a” … something or other that is now obscured by a smear of ink.
A radiant vision of loveliness, Slaughter stepped forward to be acclaimed as “the commonwealth’s most perfect specimen of young womanhood.” What’s more, her crowning was “an honor such as has never before been accorded a beauty in the history of the state, and the ceremony had all the pomp and dignity appropriate to such a noteworthy occasion.”
She wore a resplendent creation of chiffon velvet “designed and built” by Madame Fisk of the Gus Blass store. It was “a drape model along Grecian lines” and reached below her ankles. Her feet were “encased” in ornate silver slippers, and her mass of golden blond hair was dressed in queenly style, yet simply done.
She was so purty, y’all. Two days later, Slaughter and her court abdicated and went home, after various meals and opening the gate and wearing fancy gowns and all that. They had even sat together in a box at the Majestic theater, where an emcee led the crowd in three lusty cheers.
MEANWHILE
Tens of thousands of fairgoers found a midway, a bigtop with circus acts and four elephants, an automobile show and more.
A state fair celebrates agricultural achievements, and anything that can be judged will be judged at the fair — dozens of cattle, swine, chickens and sheep of varied ages, sure, but also breads, cakes, small cakes, miscellaneous small cakes, candy, jellies, fruits, vegetables, floriculture. And there were displays of farm implements, tree pests and pruning, the latest in beekeeping, cotton (39 varieties), apples, piles of butter, grains, sorghum, kefir, sweet potatoes … and much more.
A physical map of the state’s soil types annoyed a man from the Ozarks who complained his section was represented by crushed rocks.
Anyone who has read about the American eugenics movement won’t be blamed for cringing at reports that the fair’s Better Babies Health Department measured and scored 300 babes, white and Black. Infant mortality was painfully high in the 1920s, and an open-to-all-comers health-assessment clinic was a genuine need. But note that this scoring was not quite like today’s health fair screenings. “Skilled specialists” gave each child’s parents a scorecard.
The ideal was standardized babies. See arkansasonline. com/1010yikes.
The fair’s two mostly perfect babies, reported in the Oct. 22, Arkansas Gazette, were undeniably cute though. Charles Alvin Price Jr., 27 months old, and Gloria Bell Jones, 30 months, tied for first place with scores of 99.5%. Both won silver loving cups.
Charles was already a prize specimen, having won a blue ribbon at the 1921 state fair. But he did not grow up to enjoy the health his fair measurements foretold. Two-year-old Charles died of a bone infection in February 1923. He is buried in Oakland and Fraternal Historic Cemetery Park.