Life, 1899-03-09 · page 7 of 20
Life — March 9, 1899 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "The Horseless Age" - Life Magazine, Page 187 This page satirizes the emerging automobile era through several pieces: **Main cartoon**: "The Horseless Age" depicts Pegasus (the mythical winged horse) as obsolete, displaced by motorized transportation. The accompanying poem by Carolyn Wells laments that poets now have "no more use for Pegasus / Since poets gay a place to auto-rhymers." **Comic strip** (right): Shows bears repeatedly attempting to operate or ride in automobiles, humorously suggesting that even animals are adopting this new technology. **Below**: Brief satirical quotes mock contemporary society—one about women's expenses, another about love's unpredictability. The overall message: the automobile is rapidly replacing traditional horse-based transportation and culture, making even classical mythology obsolete. This reflects early 1900s anxiety about technological disruption.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
S through \<v‘ tho Elysian Flolds I strayed, T chanced upon a sight amazing; In leafy shade, where fountains played, Old Pegasus was idly grazing. “Why are you here, my friend ?” said I. “Of modern poets are you weary ?” He gavo a sigh, and dropped his eyo, And seemed embarrassed by my query. Said he: “I'm treated with abuso, I’m reckoned now among old-timers; ‘Thero's no more use for Pegasus Since poots gave piace to auto-rhymers.”” Carolyn Wells, A Prudent Woman. “ UEEN VICTORIA’S expenses O have been growing smaller every year for the last twenty years,” read Mrs. Tenspot. **T suppose she has been laying by something to support her in her old age,” added Mr. Tenspot. | ae like March, pretty often comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. A Correction. Peonta, Ixt,, February 16, 1899. DITOR OF LIFE: In your issue of tony you state that Russell A. Alger. Secretary of War in McKinley's Cabinet, is a native of the State of Michigan. This isan error. Alger was born in Ohio, but moved to Michigan when a young man, McKin- ley, Corbin and Alger were all born in Ohio, which probably accounts for the gang standing together. A Reaper oF Lire, WOMAN asks a woman questions to discover something. Sbe = keels asks a man questions to discover the man, M*s calls woman capricious simply because he is ———_ too stupid to comprehend the laws by which she RUE love makes all things lovable, except perhaps the is swayed. Woman does not cali man capricious. The chaperon, inference is obvious.