Life, 1897-06-17 · page 8 of 20
Life — June 17, 1897 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 508 This page satirizes **Saratoga Springs, New York**, a wealthy resort destination. The top illustration shows bicycles and overhead power lines, depicting the town's modern infrastructure alongside leisure activities. The text mocks Saratoga's pretensions: it describes the "rocking-chair" culture, wealthy tourists in "real Ohio uniforms," and the town's attempt to project sophistication through orchestras, Cuban cocktails, and Hungarian bands. The satire suggests these cultural affectations are hollow—mere performance for the wealthy vacationing class. The bottom illustration, captioned "BRINGING HIM TO (TWO.)" shows an interior scene, likely depicting social dynamics at the resort's hotels and gatherings. The overall point: Saratoga represents shallow materialism and affected gentility among America's leisure class.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
dor beside which Solomon's glory waxes pale and ineffectual. The rocking-chair is a Saratoga insti- tution, whence the cult has spread over the Continent. One grasps the strength of our American system when he sees in the gloaming hundreds of oriflamme- faced men and women rocking dreamily in an atmosphere of cocktails and Cubas, listening to the Hungarian band, in real Ohio uniforms, as it discourses weird selections from Hammerstein, Wagner and De Koven. Anon we see them gathered at the hotel vats, where the pure medicinal springs are stored, quaff- ing the Limburger perfumed waters and chattering gaily of their livers and shops. It has all the gay abandon of an autopsy, mingled with the rich odors of an Oriental camel auction, By day, rich, red-upholstered, open barouches pass up and down the streets filled with lolling exhibits of jewelry, the carriages drawn by prancing steeds in real, hand-made, nickel-plated har- nesses, bossed with refined brass mono- grams. Then we realize what wealth and taste can aim at. Excursion trains rush into Saratoga daily during the warm weather, vomiting forth streams of rural tourists eager to view the and gayety echoes have into the hayfields. No gloomy Cerberus repels them; the large, glad hand awaits them at the station; hack pirates, hotel Bashi - Bazoi faro-bankers, and all the representatives of Saratoga’s créme de la crime hail them joyously; and they are led away in Bacchic pro- cession to Corinthian hasheries, where the guileless ag- riculturist is plucked, de- feathered, and taught the social graces under the guidance of imposing hotel waiters. eo 8 @ UT the glory of splendor whose leaked yaa Eqcnacpe Saratoga is the intellectual circuses which come to town with the hot waves and dog days. Then bands’ of passionate pilgrims invade the town, laden to the Plimsoll mark with theories, fads, olo- BRINGING HIM TO (TWO.)