Life — May 10, 1894 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "In Spite of It" - Life Magazine, May 10, 1894 This cartoon satirizes a Victorian-era marriage based on an unconventional meeting. The dialogue reveals the joke: when asked if theirs was "a case of love at first sight," the husband responds that he first saw his wife riding a bicycle. The satire targets the bicycle craze of the 1890s and evolving attitudes toward women. Bicycles were controversial—considered unfeminine, dangerous to morality, and a symbol of women's independence. The cartoon mocks how a woman riding a bicycle (scandalous behavior) led to marriage despite this impropriety. The phrase "in spite of it" suggests that despite her modern, unconventional behavior, they married anyway—poking fun at both bicycle culture and changing gender norms in fin-de-siècle America.