Life, 1893-10-12 · page 12 of 18
Life — October 12, 1893 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis for Modern Readers This page satirizes competing claims about American literary leadership between New York and Chicago. The text mocks Chicago's ambitions to become a literary center, arguing it must buy existing magazines from New York rather than create its own—New York being the essential "central point." The "Congo Scheme" cartoons use racist caricature (depicting Black Africans in exaggerated, dehumanizing style common to the era) to mock this rivalry through analogy: just as the figure needs pants to complete his outfit, Chicago needs New York's magazines to establish literary credibility. The crude visual humor equates Chicago's literary aspirations with primitive nonsense. The poem snippet dismisses questions of ancestry/legitimacy—a metaphorical dig at Chicago's cultural pedigree compared to established Eastern institutions. This reflects early 1900s East Coast intellectual snobbery toward Chicago's growing cultural ambitions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
AS TO ANCESTRY. R. HAMLIN GAR F course I had a grand-dad, I LAND “ blows” in And a grand-dad, too, had he; ain the Forum about the liter- But who the deuce the duffer was ary emancipation of the Is all unknown to me. West. New York, he says, = 7 : 2 . is not going to keep her present literary supremacy ; no! not if Chicago knows her- self, and Mr. Hamlin thinks she Uf does. Mr. Howells has been tell- ing us that the mainstay and sup- port of contemporary American litera- ture is the monthly magazine. Has Chicago got wind of some new device for nursing an infant literature, or does. she intend to raise hers on magazines also ? And if she feels the need of magazines, where is she going to get them? Can she make them? Ohno! not in Chicago. LIFE will give Chicago a pointer. If she means to set up a literature she must have some magazines of her own, that her men of letters and art can live on while they are learning how. The way to get them is to come to New York and buy them. There are several here that we can spare to her. The place for her to own and publish her magazine is in New York. Chicago ought to have a magazine here, Per- haps, after it got well started, it might be possible to trans- plant it, but the success of that would, of course, be doubt- ful. The place to publish a magazine is in New York, with branch offices in London and in Chicago, New York is the central point, A CONGO SCHEME. HE HAS AN IDEA, WHICH HE PUTS INTO EXECUTION, comicbooks.com