Life, 1897-01-14 · page 9 of 20
Life — January 14, 1897 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 29 This page contains a satirical poem titled "The Fad Obsolete" by Maude Anderson, accompanied by a cartoon labeled "At the Museum." The cartoon depicts a fashionably dressed woman in an art museum viewing classical nude statues, with the caption: "So this is what John told me to come and see, when I came to town!" The satire targets women who adopt trendy behaviors based on male suggestions. The woman's presence at the museum—ostensibly for cultural education—is reframed as following a man's advice, suggesting she lacks independent judgment. The poem mocks various fashionable pursuits women engaged in, dismissing them as temporary crazes. Together, they satirize female conformity to social fads and reliance on male guidance for cultural sophistication, reflecting early 20th-century attitudes about women's autonomy and taste.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
* LIFE: from Pugwash and Philadelphia came miller supplanted Cotton Mather; Medford ,rum as a to worship at Boston shrines. breath-changer lost its vogue; Harvard, set up a Then came the deluge and the hegira, branch school of physical anatomy in the Boston The intellectual giants fled to New York; Theatre ; Hoyt was discovered and the Boston drama the spectacle industry decayed; police- invented; Shakespeare was flouted and Pugnacious men began to speak in New English Donnelly lectured on Bacon; Pandora's Box was super- and circulate syndicate humor; the seded by John L. Sullivan's; and the stone babies on Welsh rabbit dethroned the bean; poets the Public Library were garbed in balbriggan un- were banished to Tewksbury; the Som- derwear. Thus ended the golden age"of Boston. crset Club was imported; the cotton Joseph Smith, A POPULAR HEIR, THE FAD OBSOLETE. HAVE no foolish fad for pets, Nor spoons procured from famous places; No fad for ancient amulets, Or jewels, bric-d-brac, or laces. No fad for beggars smirched and small, Nor any crying craze excessive; I do not yearn —no, not at all — For fads that fit fa femme pro- gressive. The sewerage of the city may Be very bad, for all my knowl- edge; I have no fad to form the way Our modern maids are taught at college. For female clubs no love have I, Nor congresses of gadding mothers; For politics I do not sigh— I want no place possessed by others. I'm just a silly, simple soul — My club is by my study fire; And round its warmth I find the whole Sweet sum that fills my heart's desire. A little gold, and lots of love And faith, and all things high and human; So if a fad my motives move, AT THE MUSEUM. It is to be a normal woman. “so this 18 WHAT JOHN TOLD ME TO COME AND SEE, WHEN I CAME TO TOWN!” Maude Andrews. comicbooks.com