8. Nora Smallwood Was The First Native American Winner
After winning her crown, she made $100,000 in one year. In today’s money, this would have made her a multi-millionaire. This made a lot of people jealous, and many men took issue with a woman making so much money from just standing around looking pretty.
When the Miss America pageant asked her to come back the next year to hand over her crown, Nora Smallwood requested her normal $600 fee that she charged for public appearances. No other winner had ever asked for money to come back on stage. They were willing to pay her, but they just couldn’t come up with the money, so Norma Smallwood accepted a paid gig in North Carolina first, before returning to Atlantic City to crown the new Miss America.
This caused a lot of outrage in the public, and newspaper printed stories about her being greedy and ungrateful, saying that she would have never become so famous if it were not for the contest. Even today, winners of Miss America are strongly encouraged to put their duties as the winner of the competition first, over opportunities tat might allow them to make money.