Judge — November 26, 1921 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This is the cover of Judge magazine from November 26, 1921. The cartoon depicts two women in an interior setting, with one reclining on a bed or couch and another sitting beside her offering a cigarette, saying "Have one, my dear. There's nothing like a breath of fresh smoke to wake one up!" The satire targets changing social norms around women smoking, which was controversial in the 1920s. The image mocks the "modern woman" of the Jazz Age—women who defied Victorian propriety by smoking publicly, a practice considered scandalous and masculine. By presenting cigarette-smoking as a casual, revitalizing habit among fashionable women, Judge satirizes both the new female independence and society's anxieties about these social changes. The elegant setting emphasizes this was becoming acceptable among the upper classes.