Life, 1897-10-28 · page 7 of 22
Life — October 28, 1897 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Turned Both Ways" - Life Magazine Cartoon This cartoon satirizes a young woman's romantic fickleness. The title and caption reveal she rejected an engagement from "last summer" but has now accepted a new suitor—suggesting she's changed her mind about commitment. The illustration shows two elegantly dressed women viewing a framed portrait (likely of a rejected fiancé) on a decorative wall. The humor targets early 20th-century courtship conventions, where broken engagements were socially significant events. The joke plays on the phrase "turned both ways"—implying the woman has reversed her decision, while the visual composition shows her literally turning away from her previous romantic choice. This reflects period anxieties about women's increasing independence in choosing marriage partners.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TURNED BOTH WAYS. “THAT YOUNG SIMPLETON TO WHOM I WAS ENGAGED LAST SUMMER TURNED UP YESTERDAY,” “GRACIOUS! YOU POOR THING! WHAT DID you Do?” ‘“T ACCEPTED HIM,” comicbooks.com