Judge — June 21, 1919 — page 27: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page satirizes women's athletic training through humorous photographic vignettes with comedic captions. The content depicts various training activities—operating a throttle, associating with wild animals, cultivating vegetables, practicing gymnastics, and performing athletic movements—presented as earnest preparation for breaking records. The satire targets early 20th-century women's athletics, likely mocking both the novelty of female competitive sports and the pseudo-scientific training advice circulating at the time. Captions by apparent contributors (Olive Kline, Sally Hamlin, Mabel Garrison, etc.) offer absurd instruction: studying bird songs, maintaining diet vigilance, and developing "instinctive" grace. The humor derives from presenting ridiculous, unrelated activities as legitimate athletic preparation, satirizing the era's uncertainty about women's sports training and perhaps gender assumptions about female athleticism itself.