Life — September 4, 1890 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This is a humorous illustration captioned "Practical Girl (From the West)" depicting an exchange between two young women outside what appears to be a European church or historic building. The joke contrasts regional American attitudes toward literary and religious propriety. A "Boston Girl" (representing the educated East Coast establishment) corrects a "Practical Girl" (from the West) for saying "amen" to a prayer instead of using proper literary form. The Western girl's response—that she was "endorsing the literary form, not the sentiment"—satirizes the pragmatic, no-nonsense attitude stereotypically associated with Western American women versus the more formal, sentiment-driven Eastern establishment. The cartoon reflects early 1900s regional cultural tensions about how women should conduct themselves and prioritize substance over superficial propriety.