I am in a room with three other girls—Miss Philadelphia, Miss Cincinnati and Miss Beaumont. It Is a little crowded

© SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum…
© SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN.
I am in a room with three other girls—Miss Philadelphia, Miss Cincinnati and Miss Beaumont. It Is a little crowded
© SEPS: Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN. Photograph and digital image © Delaware Art Museum. Not for reproduction or publication.

I am in a room with three other girls—Miss Philadelphia, Miss Cincinnati and Miss Beaumont. It Is a little crowded

Date1928
Artist (American illustrator, 1873–1949)
Illustration Citation"Miss Brooklyn and Queens," by Edith Fitzgerald, in The Saturday Evening Post, June 15, 1929
MediumCharcoal and watercolor on illustration board
Dimensionscomposition: 16 1/2 × 17 1/4 in. (41.9 × 43.8 cm)
sheet: 20 13/16 × 19 3/4 in. (52.9 × 50.2 cm)
Credit LineGift of Helen Farr Sloan, 1987
Object number1987-151
On View
On view
ClassificationsDRAWING
Label TextThis drawing illustrates a humorous story about a woman whose mother, without her permission, enters her photograph in a magazine's competition for the Most Beautiful Working Girl. Modern beauty pageants started with the first Miss America Pageant, held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1921.

The reverse shows a detailed sketch of the figure seated at the right, demonstrating Preston's careful working methods. Trained as a painter, Preston undertook illustration to support herself when her first husband died. She later married the artist James Preston; they were among the founders of the Society of Illustrators in New York, which remains a major professional organization today.