Life, 1897-08-05 · page 9 of 26
Life — August 5, 1897 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 109 This page satirizes the "Advanced Mothers' Hygiene Club," which advocates against kissing children due to germ transmission concerns. The photograph shows two women at what appears to be a lecture or meeting about hygiene. The text mocks the speaker's emphatic warnings that mothers' kisses spread disease to children. The satire targets the tension between modern scientific hygiene concerns and traditional maternal affection—suggesting the hygiene movement has become absurdly extreme in asking mothers to suppress natural physical displays of love. The caption's dialogue about a brother playing "Hamlet" appears to reference theatrical performance, possibly contrasting dramatic artificiality with genuine maternal behavior. The overall joke ridicules the tension between contemporary public-health messaging and common parenting practices that audiences would find emotionally absurd to abandon.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“NOT VERY WELL AS YET. The Suppression of Osculation. ‘T°HE regular meeting of the Ad- vanced Mothers’ Hygienic Club was in full progress. The subject for discussion, as an- nounced by the speaker, a bespectacled, lean-visaged female from Boston, was ‘The Dangerous Transference of Germs by the Process of Osculation.” “It is asin!" she declared emphatic- ally, suddenly bursting forth from her preamble with a force of well-rounded Emersonian elocution, that caused her listeners to fix on the speaker a startled and fascinated gaze. hen, having the full attention of her hearers, she continued: ‘It is a posi- tive, an awful and appalling sin, to force upon our little ones, who in their igno- rant helplessness know not of the d gers they are incurring, the kiss which the careless, heedless, wicked mother v her selfishness forces upon them \c is kiss, kiss, kiss—fondle, bend over, “HOW IS YOUR BROTHER GETTING ALONG?” breathe into the face of the child, inflict upon it those caresses which a grown person would refuse and resent. “Not content with kissing her own child and exposing it to her germ-laden breath, and that of all the adoring rela- tives to whom baby is held up to be kissed, and who are accounted cold and unfeeling if they refuse, she must in- flict upon other children—your children, my children” (her voice sinking to a deep, pathetic tonc)— ‘this disease- carrying kiss. he will meet youin the street, and with rapturous exclamations kiss your child again and again, dealing it, per- haps, its death blow. Her eagle eye swept the audience, and guilty mothers quailed beneath her awful glance. There was the soft applause of gloved hands as she made her final period and stepped from the platform. The members clustered around her, HE 15 PLAYING ‘HAMLET’ NOW, BUT WE HOPE TO GET HIM A VARIETY PART NEXT SEASON." and there was a confusion of earnest, excited voices, It was a great day for the Advanced Mothers’ Hygienic Club, ‘Yes, lam exceedingly fond of chil- dren," she said, as they passed out of the créche they had been visiting. “This is really a great institution. See—I have taken notes. I shall lec- ture on certain phases of its manage- ment when I return to Boston. It really is excellent.” She wiped her glasses thoughtfully. ‘Bless the tots!" she cried, a smile illuminating her face. ‘I could fairly eat them, every one,” There was a troubled look in the eyes of her hostess as they passed up the avenue. The lecturer on the ‘Dangerous Transference of Germs by the Process of Osculation” had kissed cach one of the thirty-seven babies in the créche. Harriet Caryl Cox,