Miss America is connected to various subsidiary programs throughout the U.S.A. Local contests select local representatives (e.g., "Miss Mobile, Alabama") who go on to participate in state pageants (e.g., for "Miss Alabama"). The winners of the various state pageants (plus pageants for "Miss District of Columbia" and "Miss United States Virgin Islands|Virgin Islands") go on to compete for the title of "Miss America" at an annual national competition. Miss Virgin Islands competed for the first time in the 2004 pageant. Thus far, there has not been a "Miss Puerto Rico" or a "Miss Guam" representing.

Contestants for Miss America and the various state and local pageants are selected by panels of judges based on a set of four competitions:

1) Interview Each contestant converses with the judges on a variety of topics, from frivolous trivia to serious political and social issues. The contestant is awarded points for being well spoken, polite, articulate, and confident. This competition is less known by the general public than other aspects of the pageant, since unlike the other three, it does not take place on a theater stage, nor is it usually televised.

2) Talent The contestant performs on stage before the judges and an audience. The most common talents are singing or dance|dancing, but a variety of other talents may be exhibited at the contestant's choosing; some have demonstrated juggling, playing musical instruments, ventriloquism, quick-draw painting; one even chose to demonstrate the proper way to pack a suitcase.

3) Swimsuit In the famous swimsuit competition contestants walk on the stage in swimsuits and high-heeled shoes. The Miss America pageant regulates certain minimum standards of modesty the swimwear must comply with. Judging for this portion of the competition focuses on overall physical fitness, poise and posture. Until recently, the contestants were required to wear identical, somewhat dated, one-piece suits. Recently, the organization has allowed contestants to choose their own more revealing two-piece suits, bikinis, or more modern one-piece suits.

4) Evening gown Similar to the swimsuit competition, but the contestants walk slowly in formal evening gowns.

A community service platform became a requirement of Miss America contestants beginning with the 1989 pageant. Platforms promoted by previous Miss Americas have included AIDS awareness and prevention, diabetes awareness, outreach for homeless veterans, domestic violence awareness and support for terminal breast cancer patients.

Prizes are given at local, state, and national level, consisting most commonly of scholarships for use in higher education, sometimes supplemented with money and merchandise donated by sponsors.

The Miss America competition originated on September 7, 1921, as a two-day beauty contest in Atlantic City, New Jersey|Atlantic City, New Jersey. The event that year was still called the Atlantic City Pageant, and the winner of the grand prize, the 3-foot Golden Mermaid trophy, wasn't even called "Miss America" until 1922, when she re-entered the pageant. The pageant was initiated in an attempt to keep tourists in Atlantic City after Labor Day.

In the early years of the pageant, a beauty competition of the women wearing bathing suits was the main event. When pageant officials decided to make this a less important part of the competition, swimsuit-making sponsors started their own separate pageant, Miss USA. Yolande Betbeze, Miss America 1951, refused to pose for publicity pictures while wearing a swimsuit, citing that she wanted to be recognized as a serious opera singer. Catalina swimwear, which was a Miss America sponsor, split off and created the Miss USA/Universe pageants.

In 1955, the awards were televised for the first time; that year's winner was Lee Meriwether. In 1959, Mary Ann Mobley of Brandon, Mississippi won the Miss Mississippi title and then went on to win the Miss America pageant. The next year, her successor as Miss Mississippi (Lynda Lee Mead of Natchez, Mississippi|Natchez) also went on to win the Miss America title. As of 2006, Mississippi remains the only state to have produced Miss Americas in consecutive years.

The pageant has been nationally televised since 1954. It peaked in the early 1960s, when it was repeatedly the highest-rated program on American television. It was seen as a symbol of the United States, with Miss America often being referred to as the female equivalent of the President of the United States. The pageant stressed conservative values; contestants were not expected to have ambitions beyond being a good wife. The Miss America pageant was also only open to whites; a parallel Miss Black America pageant was held for African-American contestants.

With the rise of the feminist and the civil rights movements the pageant became a focus of protests each year, and its audience began to fade. In the 1970s it began to change, admitting blacks and encouraging a new type of professional woman. This was symbolized by the 1974 victory of Rebecca Ann King, an outspokenly pro-choice law student.

Still, ratings flagged. In an attempt to create a younger image, Bert Parks, the pageant's famous emcee from 1954 to 1979, was dismissed. Parks had virtually became an American icon, singing the show's signature song, "There She Is, Miss America" as the newly-crowned Miss America took her walk down the ramp at the end of each year's pageant. His dismissal prompted public criticism; in protest, Johnny Carson organized a letter-writing campaign to reinstate Parks, but it was unsuccessful.

In 1984, Vanessa Lynn Williams became the first black winner, but was forced to relinquish her title when Penthouse magazine published nude pictures of her that were taken before her contest victories; finalist Suzette Charles was crowned Miss America. Both women are now included on the canonical list of Miss America laureates; Charles is officially designated "Miss America 1984 B."

Many Miss America winners live on in relative anonymity, but Vanessa Williams has made a nationally prominent career as a singer and an actress. Others who have had prominent careers in such fields as show business include Bess Myerson, Mary Ann Mobley, Lee Meriwether, and Phyllis George. Interestingly, Myerson was the first Jewish Miss America, and she was selected in 1945, the year that all the The Holocaust atrocities against the Jews had been revealed.

In the 1990s, the pageant was reformed into The Miss America Organization, a not-for-profit corporation with three divisions: the Miss America Pageant, a scholarship fund, and a Miss America foundation.

Since the pageant's peak in the early 1960s, its audience has eroded significantly. In 2004, when its audience fell to fewer than 10 million viewers, its broadcaster, American Broadcasting Company|ABC, decided to drop the pageant. "Broadcasters show data proving that the talent show and the interviews, the pageant's answers to feminist criticism, were the least popular portions of the pageant, while the swimsuit part still had the power to bring viewers back from the kitchen. So pageant officials - who still require chaperones for contestants when they are in Atlantic City - are thinking about showing a little more." [1]

In 2005 the pageant announced a new television agreement with cable network Country Music Television (CMT), a switch in the pageant's schedule from September to January 21, 2006, and a move away from Atlantic City and Boardwalk Hall after 85 years to another city that has casinos: Las Vegas, Nevada and the Aladdin Hotel-Casino. The show was hosted by James Denton, a star of the television show Desperate Housewives.

In 2006, it was announced by the Miss America Organization and CMT that the latter would air the reality television series Finding Miss America in the days leading up to the January 2007 pageant. The show will have an interactive feature, with viewers casting votes for their favorites by phone and at the CMT website.

Due to the altered schedule, Miss America 2005, Alabama's Deidre Downs, reigned for 16 months instead of the usual 12. She was only the second longest-reigning Miss America: in the early days of the pageant, Mary Katherine Campbell served two consecutive terms (which is no longer allowed.)