Judge — November 10, 1917 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the social upheaval caused by wartime mobilization. The joke hinges on ironic role reversal: a wealthy woman ("Young Mrs. Sturtevant") who recently fired her housekeeper for being rude now finds herself in the Home Defense (likely a civilian defense or volunteer organization) taking orders from that same former employee—now her superior in the military hierarchy. The humor exploits class anxiety: wartime has temporarily leveled social distinctions, forcing the upper-class woman into subordination to someone she considered beneath her. The cartoonist mocks both the woman's discomfort with this inversion and the absurdity of domestic conflicts persisting during national crisis. It's a commentary on how war disrupts peacetime social order and hierarchies, presented as a mild domestic comedy rather than serious social critique.