Judge, 1932-01-02 · page 9 of 36
Judge — January 2, 1932 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page This page satirizes **1930s consumer culture and the Great Depression**. The top cartoon mocks a husband's complaint about his wife's extravagant purchases—he demands to see the clerk who sold her an expensive tie, suggesting marital tension over spending. The main article parodies corporate marketing speak, referencing the "International No-Got Corporation" (a fictional company name playing on consumer deprivation). It mockingly suggests inventing absurd household gadgets—magnetized shoemaker's awls, "Nasal-Intensifiers," ash-trays—to revive consumer spending and restore "faith" in purchasing. The poem by Margaret Fishback expresses middle-class anxiety about financial insecurity and dependence on luxuries. The lower illustration shows two women discussing a chair purchase, with the wife's resigned acceptance that "my husband won't like it—but then I can't please everyone," capturing tensions between desire and domestic economy during economic hardship. **Overall point**: Satirizing both corporate attempts to manipulate consumers into unnecessary purchases and the psychological toll Depression-era financial anxiety placed on households.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
JUDGE Man the Life Boats O: all the millionaires extant, I don’t know one who plans to le: Me anything, although a seant Bequest would help me to achieve What I desire—to wit, to woo Sweet hours of indolence without A worry as to what or who Will pay my rent, nor yet a doubt From whence will come the coddled egg, The toothsome steak, the cherry tart, With now and then a portly ke Of appl to ease the heart. —Marcarer Fisipack “Just show me the clerk who sold that tie to my wife!” December rd is 21. inkles (the ndard unit of boon measurement) inst 98.02 inkles (revised) for a similar period in 1929. Scarcely a trace of the old spirit remains. And the boon-hunting housewife, secking some meager crumb in the advertise- ments to restore her lost faith, sighs and is resigned to her fate. 4VACING these facts, the Inter al No-Got Corporation is urging an immediate return to production peaks. Let the boon-builders rally as they did in the bounding days before the boo-hooing began. The field is wide open. Crying needs are everywhere! What about a magnetized shocmaker’s awl for re- moving pin feathers from kosher chickens? What about a Nasal-Inten- sifier for instantaneous detection of burning odors from the oven? What about a Central Ash-Tray Collection System? How about a simple device for uncurling ancho- es Let's have something—anything— for a beginning! Once under with the slumber- ing, boon-buying instincts of the na- tion aroused, there would be no fur- ther downward revisions in the in dices. The dollar-down boon would become a commodity. Faith would be restored. Get behind this virgin campaign of the Remedial-Measures and Forward- Steps Department of the Internation- al No-Got Corporation! Let us have “My husband won't like it—but then more boons for housewives. I can’t please everyone.” comicbooks.com