Life, 1900-08-16 · page 13 of 20
Life — August 16, 1900 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Cartoon**: "A Yard of Gay Bunting" depicts children playing in a yard. The title appears to be a pun—"bunting" refers both to decorative fabric and to the children's active play. **Main Content**: A satirical essay critiquing fashion and clothing conventions. The author argues that: - People claim to value freedom yet blindly follow fashion dictates set by merchants - Women bear responsibility for humanity's obsession with clothing, having first persuaded men to wear garments - Daily dress rituals (changing clothes multiple times) create false pride in humans - Women perpetuate this "fatal habit" in men, fearing they might otherwise question fashion's necessity **Side Illustration**: Shows a figure ("Private Greenwood") sleeping against a lamp post, damaged from the experience—a humorous vignette about the consequences of poor judgment. **Satirical Point**: The piece mocks both fashion's arbitrary nature and society's blind conformity to it, while blaming women as fashion's primary enforcers. This reflects early 20th-century social commentary on consumerism and gender roles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
hasn’t courage or sense enough to wear what pleases him. the legislators of any particular * . . af F community should decide that a certain style of garment was more com- Private Greenwood: DARN 17 ALL! THIS 18 WHAT I GET FOR SLEEPING UP AGAINST THE LAMP-Post. YARD... fortable than any other, and should pass a law compelling everyone to wear it, everyone would protest, because we are such sticklers for freedom that we like to break the laws, if only to show our power. But when a few of the leading tradespeople get to- gether and fix the style for the coming season, we ‘fall all over’’ ourselves in order to obey their mandates. It is much pleasanter to be put in jail than to be ridiculed, ——__ . . . F we can 80 easily trace the clothes wear- ing habit back to Eden, we can as easily place our finger on the prime mover. The fact is, woman is responsible for this whole horrible business. She it was who first persuaded man that clothes should be worn, and like the poor dumb fool that he is, he has goneon wear- ing them ever since. To-day, he rises in the morning and arrays him- selfina dozen differ- cus-Dians—B ent affairs, each one cut on lines which are about as meaningless and ungrace- ful as the vulgarity of generations has been able to produce. The Monday line of wash in a back yard jars on the artistic sense like an active rheumatic harp on the tym- panum, but when proud man puts these identical togs on, so ‘doth custom breed a habit’ that he is puffed up with immense pride and walks around among all the other animals as the Lord of creation. When he goes out of doors he puts on his head either a cloth box, or a stiff cloth bag, or that shining instrument of torture known as the silk hat, which it has taken the idiocy of ages to produce. . * . ND the worst of it is that woman spurs him on to doit. Wearing clothes is her chief occupation, and she, therefore, makes him her partner in © the fatal habit, fearing that if he isn’t, he might wake up some day and find out how uncomfortable he really is. Krasamus. “ para what is the vain pomp and glory of this world?” “My son, it’s the things we preach against when we don't succeed in getting them.” gNanous : So you have another baby at your house, What ishe like? ExanentCritic: Well, he is not very interesting but he is mighty convincing.