Washington Post Live

The Miss America Organization celebrates its 100th birthday in September. What started as a local event meant to extend the tourism season past Labor Day turned into a heralded nationwide pageant and scholarship program that has survived its own history of sexism and misogyny. Washington Post writer Amy Argetsinger’s retrospective book “There She Was: A Secret History of Miss America” takes readers on a journey through American feminist history, racism, the end of the swimsuit competition and the pageant’s recent steep decline in viewership.