Life — June 10, 1886 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "A Question of Family" - Life Magazine, June 10, 1886 This cartoon satirizes social climbing and botanical snobbery among the wealthy. Mrs. Follihed asks whether a plant belongs to the "Banana family," while Mr. B. dismissively corrects her, stating it belongs to the "Loring family, of Boston." The joke targets the pretension of Boston's established elite families (the Lorings), who considered themselves socially superior. By having the characters debate a plant's "family" lineage, the cartoonist mocks how the upper classes obsessed over genealogy and family status—treating noble ancestry like botanical classification. Mrs. Follihed's mistake suggests nouveau riche ignorance, while Mr. B.'s correction emphasizes the rigid social hierarchies among Boston society where "proper" family names mattered enormously.