Life, 1900-12-06 · page 5 of 20
Life — December 6, 1900 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Life's Contest of Beauty This page presents "Life's Contest of Beauty," a reader-participation contest where Life magazine invited subscribers to rank twenty illustrated female heads by attractiveness. Contestants would number the faces 1-20 in order of perceived beauty, submit their answers, and the winner would receive $100—a substantial prize in 1900. The contest reflects early-20th-century popular culture's preoccupation with female beauty as measurable and rankable. The illustrations show various hairstyles and fashion details typical of the Gibson Girl era. The contest closes January 14, 1901, and winners would be announced in subsequent issues. This appears designed primarily as entertainment and circulation-building rather than satire, though modern readers might find the premise of quantifying women's beauty somewhat problematic.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Life’s Contest of Beauty. LY offers a prize of one hundred dollars to the person who shall correctly select the twenty heads shown above in the order of their beauty. DIRECTIONS. Select tho face you consider the most beautiful and beneath It place distinctly the figure 1. Beneath the face you consider second tn order of beauty, place the figure 2, and so on through the entire twenty, When all have been numbered, write your name and address plainly in the margin, tear the page out, and mall It to LirR's Contest of Beauty, 19 West Thirty-tirst Street, New York City. HOW THE PRIZE WILL BE AWARDED, ‘The contestants themselves will award the prize. ‘The face which !s marked 1 Ly the greatest number of competitors will be considered the most beautiful. The one marked 2 by the greatest namber of competitors will be considered the next most beautiful, and #0 on to the twentleth. ‘The prize will be awarded to the person whose page goes furthest down the list in the exact order of selection chosen by the majonty, The same competitor may send In any namber of pages. Under this plan no partiality can be shown, and there ls practically no possibility that the prize will be divided. Should this occur, however, Live reserves the right to divide tt among the successful competitors. CONDITIONS. The contest closes at noon ou January 1th, 1901. No pages received at Live Office after that hour will be considered, The page will appear in the tssues of Lire dated the 6th, 13th, 20th and ‘27th of December, 1900, As soon as possible after the close of the competition, Lire will xend one Ruvdved do'lirs to the winner, and will print the page showing the order in which the faces were selected by a majority of the competiiors, together with the selections of the winner. Favelopes should contain nothing but the marked pages, and be add-eased to Lips's Conresr ov BEAUTY, 19 West THIRTY-FIRsT STREET, New Youre Crry.