Miss America; pen and camera sketches of the American girl

Miss America
PEN AND CAMERA SKETCHES OF THE AMERICAN GIRL
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
Copyright, 1898, by Charles Scribner’s Sons
All rights reserved
University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U. S. A.
THE AMERICAN GIRL WHOM I HAVE KNOWN BEST
MY WIFE
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
It will be suspected, perhaps, that in saying “sketches,” I have wished to escape some of the responsibility which might have been incurred by a more formal approach to a momentous theme, though the entire truth of the description should carry its own justification. And if the term be permitted in describing the text, it has equal appropriateness in describing the pictures; for the photograph seldom can be more than a sketch, and must be content with the limitations as well as with the privileges of the sketch. The feminine eye will discern unaided by data the chronological range of my pictures. To other eyes, possibly, I should explain that the portraits represent a period of six or seven years, and that those in conventional dress are supplemented by various costume sketches with the camera recalling eras in which there was no photography. What I have said of the American type in the first chapter will explain my own difficulty in expressing the American type by the aid of the lens, a difficulty which has not been diminished by the privilege of wide travel. If I have not revealed the geographical identity of any of the types reflected here, the reservation may, I hope, seem to be as fully justified as certain other reservations which the American girl herself so frequently chooses to hold.