Life — June 7, 1900 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Life Magazine Cover, June 7, 1900 This is the cover of *Life*'s "Sporting Number," featuring an illustrated Gibson Girl–style woman in elegant athletic attire holding a rifle aloft triumphantly. She wears a tailored jacket and long skirt typical of 1900s women's fashion, with her hair styled fashionably upswept. The image celebrates the "New Woman" of the era—an emerging figure of female independence and athleticism that challenged Victorian gender norms. By depicting her with sporting equipment (rifle and what appears to be a golf club), the cover satirizes the growing participation of women in outdoor sports and leisure activities previously considered exclusively male domains. This reflects the period's social anxieties and fascinations with changing women's roles around 1900.