In 1902, when she was 19 years old, Maude Fealy posed for this photograph by Burr McIntosh.
Maude was one of a handful of actors who successfully moved from the stage to silent film and from silent film to talkies.
I was reading a little about Maude and I found this picture labeled “Fealy featured in Representative Women of Colorado, 1914.”
Wikimedia
The idea of a picture of a “representative woman” struck me as really funny. What purpose does it serve to have a representative woman, and how did they determine who should represent everyone? Was Maude a composite of what an average Colorado woman looked like (build, height, hair color, age, and clothes)? I find it a little suspicious that a beautiful movie star just happened to be Colorado’s representative woman.
“Representative woman” reminds me a bit of The Onion’s “Area Man.”
The Onion
Representative woman is actually a pretty interesting idea. What does a modern representative New Jersey woman look like? What about a representative man from Michigan? I’m not sure how anyone could use that information in a productive way.
But it would make a great art project.
Speaking of composites, have you ever looked at Parabon labs website? If not, you might find it interesting. The company uses DNA samples from criminal cases to create composite drawings of suspects. They also use it to identify bodies by providing a picture of what the person could have looked like in life. In cases where the suspect was found and charged or the body was definitively identified, they show the person’s picture next to the composite. It’s really remarkable!
old spirituals 
Maude was attractive and wholesome looking. I suppose that was representative of a Colorado woman of 1902 and 1914.
The Onion’s “Area Man” is meant to identify the “person” as local. Typically, a person from Pittsburgh is referred to as a “Yinzer.” That term reflects their regional identity and is often associated with the local dialect known as Pittsburghese. One colloquialism unique to Pittsburgh is “Go red up your room.” It doesn’t mean paint your room the color red. It means go clean up your room.
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I grew up in Ohio and occasionally still slide into some midwestern slang like calling soda “pop” or saying things like “run the sweeper” (i.e., vacuum)! 😂😂
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I believe the Area Man was featured because of the amount of food he can eat without becoming obese. I have a grandson that is 6’5″, pitches for his university baseball team and has to eat tons of calories a day just to keep from losing weight because his metabolism is so high. A major league team was looking at him and told him he needed to gain 20 pounds and I told him I wish I could “share” some of my pounds! Lol.
It sounds as if Maude Fealy was featured in a local or statewide publication. It would be interesting to see the other women that may have been featured in another issue. Maude was actually born in Tennessee, so Colorado cannot claim the teenage beauty. America has always had its idea of the American Girl and that’s what the early Hollywood scouts were looking for. Who hasn’t wished to look as perfect as Grace Kelley or have Betty Grable’s legs? SIGH! Lol. These days, it’s the Kardashian’s. Maude was lovely, with perfect features and beautiful hair. Maybe she had bad breath! I just don’t think anyone is ever perfect.
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You know that’s a great point. Today’s It Girls don’t really look like classically beautiful women. I wish we would revert back a little. Different types of beauty are good but I’m thinking of the way people present themselves. For me, at least, if I see other people looking healthy and dressing nicely and moving gracefully, it inspires me to straighten up and try a little harder. I think we ought to embrace what we are but it’s hard not to focus on your flaws at times! I had a friend from Spain who was a very pretty girl. She moved to Norway and she said she felt badly about herself at first because she was surrounded by these tall, beautiful, ethereal blonde women. She was petite and had an olive complexion. She couldn’t never look like them—-but they couldn’t look like her either. A lot of men found her more attractive because she was beautiful in a different way. Self-acceptance is important—-but I would still pay for metabolism like your grandson’s!
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