I’ve covered the odd ‘perfection’ declarations before from 100 years ago. Newspapers were obsessed with declaring women, or specific parts of them, as ‘perfect.’ Mainly as an excuse to put their hands on them, measure them, and judge their looks. But today’s contest had so many specifics in it, that I just couldn’t pass up sharing.

"67 Men Pick Out Girl With Perfect Leg."

First impression, that seems like a lot of judges. I kept reading. It got better.

Here is what was reported straight-faced by a staff correspondent of the International News Service on June 12th, 1926, in New York City.

The National Hosiery and Underwear Manufacturers Association (yes, a real thing) needed a standard. Specifically, they needed to know what the perfect female leg looked like so they could build their silk stockings around it. Ok. Seems like a reasonable business problem. But then again reasonable people might have solved it differently. These were not those people.

They held a competition.

Three hundred women entered. Sixty-seven members of the association served as “judges.” The paper described their methodology carefully: they used microscopes, tape measures, and, in the reporter's words, "just plain eyesight." There was, the paper noted, a considerable amount of hemming and hawing before anyone reached a conclusion.

I bet.

The winner was Ethel Dale. Her measurements, which the newspaper printed in full because of course they did, were as follows: ankle, seven and one-quarter inches; calf, twelve inches; knee, thirteen and one-quarter inches; thigh, twenty inches. The San Francisco Examiner ran a full diagram of her leg with each measurement labeled by arrow, under the headline "Perfect Understanding." It looks like an instruction manual.

Ethel took home a silver cup and five hundred dollars in cash. She was crowned Queen of the Hosiery and Underwear Exposition, which was in full swing that week at a New York hotel.

But here is where it gets truly committed. The association didn't just give her a trophy and send her home. They hired a sculptor named Pompeo Coppini to cast her ankles in bronze. Hereafter, all silk stockings would be manufactured according to Ethel Dale's ankle dimensions. She was now, officially and permanently, the standard.

The paper also reported that Ethel had specifically avoided the Charleston to protect the symmetry of her legs. This was not a casual decision. She had thought about this. She had a long game and she played it.

There is also the matter of the credentials. Earl Carroll and Flo Ziegfeld had previously approved of the shape of Miss Dale's ankles, and she had won an ankle contest at Bradley Beach. I like how matter-of-factly these things are all listed. Carry on…

Worth noting: that same Earl Carroll had just been convicted of perjury for lying to a federal grand jury about whether his wild Broadway party-tub contained champagne or ginger ale. His downfall? The nude model who was submerged in the liquid in question confirmed that it was in fact champagne (which seems too fizzy to be comfortable in, right?). He was heading to federal prison. But prior to his conviction, he had weighed in on Ethel’s ankles.

The Washington Daily News ran a photo of Ethel holding the silver cup. She is seated, composed, looking directly at the camera. She looks like someone who won exactly what she came to win.

The Washington Times, to their credit, published her face. The San Francisco Examiner just published the diagram and statistics. At the bottom, under the arrows and the measurements and the whole apparatus of scientific judgment, the caption read:

What I keep coming back to is how completely serious everyone was about this. The judges deliberated. The sculptor was commissioned. I even found footage of a ‘perfect back’ contest in 1928 which puts a disturbing visual to all this nonsense and misogyny.

Nobody in that room thought they were doing anything absurd.

And just when we think that’s strange, subscribers today get an article about buying votes for an election being ‘usual’. To the point where people even have a code of ethics about it.

See you tomorrow

-Chris