MISS AMERICA

PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES
OF THE AMERICAN GIRL

BY

ALEXANDER BLACK
Author of “Miss Jerry,” etc.

WITH DESIGNS AND PHOTOGRAPHIC
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY THE AUTHOR

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK: M DCCC XC VIII

It will be suspected, perhaps, that in saying “sketches,” I havewished to escape some of the responsibility which might have beenincurred by a more formal approach to a momentous theme, though theentire truth of the description should carry its own justification.And if the term be permitted in describing the text, it has equalappropriateness in describing the pictures; for the photograph seldomcan be more than a sketch, and must be content with the limitationsas well as with the privileges of the sketch. The feminine eye willdiscern unaided by data the chronological range of my pictures. Toother eyes, possibly, I should explain that the portraits represent aperiod of six or seven years, and that those in conventional dress aresupplemented by various costume sketches with the camera recalling erasin which there was no photography. What I have said of the Americantype in the first chapter will explain my own difficulty in expressingthe American type by the aid of the lens, a difficulty which has notbeen diminished by the privilege of wide travel. If I have not revealedthe geographical identity of any of the types reflected here, thereservation may, I hope, seem to be as fully justified as certain otherreservations which the American girl herself so frequently chooses tohold.

I often have wished that it were easier to substitute for “American”some name which should more specifically indicate the United States. Itis the United States girl I am talking about; it is the United Statesspirit which I have sought to discover, and not the spirit of the widerAmerica of which the foreigner, and even the British foreigner, sofrequently, and so reasonably, seems to be thinking when he uses thename “American.” Now that Miss America for the first time has seen hersoldier brothers go abroad to fight and to conquer, it may be that inone way or another there will be a further modification of the term, inwhich direction it would be difficult to say at this hour.

Because this is an apology and not a mere preface, I may bepermitted, I h