Life, 1885-12-17 · page 1 of 18
Life — December 17, 1885 — page 1: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Gentle Blood" - Life Magazine, December 17, 1885 This satirical cartoon depicts a cemetery scene mocking new wealth and social pretension in Chicago. The dialogue reveals the joke: a man from Chicago, Mr. A, encounters a young fellow driving an expensive carriage and asks who he is. The response indicates the youth's father made his money in Chicago "after the fire"—likely referring to the 1871 Great Chicago Fire and subsequent reconstruction. The satire targets the nouveau riche: those who accumulated sudden wealth through post-disaster rebuilding and are now parading their "gentle blood" (aristocratic status) despite their recent poverty. The cemetery setting and religious iconography underscore the irony that such "new money" cannot buy genuine inherited nobility or respectability, only ostentatious display.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
VOLUME VI. NEW YORK, DECEMBER 17, 1885. NUMBER 155. Entered at New York Post Office as Second-Class Mail Matter. Copyright, 188, by MITCHELL & MILLER. eganereweus: GENTLE BLOOD. Mr, A. (a comparative stranger in Chicago): WHO 1S THAT YOUNG FELLOW DRIV- ING BY IN A CART, HE LOOKS AN AWFUL SWELL?” Miss X. (whose father made his money in Chicago before the fire): 1 DON'T KNOW. ONE SEES SO MANY NOUVEAUX RICHES NOWADAYS, THAT REALLY ONE DOESN'T KNOW WHO 1S WHO. It turns out to be Mr. M—., whose father made his money in Chicago AFTER the fire. comicbooks.com