Life, 1900-12-27 · page 14 of 21
Life — December 27, 1900 — page 14: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a reader-participation contest, not political satire. *Life* magazine presented twenty illustrated female faces and invited readers to rank them by beauty, with a $100 prize for whoever's ranking matched the majority vote most closely. The contest reflects early-20th-century popular culture's fascination with standardizing and democratizing aesthetic judgment. By crowdsourcing beauty rankings, *Life* treated subjective taste as quantifiable and collective—a form of social consensus-building typical of the era. The twenty faces shown represent different "types" of beauty (various hairstyles, expressions, and facial features), likely reflecting contemporary ideals of feminine beauty. The contest's rules explicitly state *Life* reserves judgment, making readers themselves the arbiters of beauty standards—a clever editorial strategy that generated reader engagement while appearing democratic.
📄 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. IFE 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. OIRECTIONS Select the face you consider the most beautiful and beneath It place distinctly the Mgure 1. Reneath the face you consider second {n order of beauty, place the figure 2, and so on through the entire twenty. When all have been numbered, write your name and address West Thirty.tinst Str ‘ew York City. HOW THE PRIZE WILL BE AWARDEO. ‘The contestants themselves will award the prize. ‘The face which is marked 1 by the greatest number of competitors will be considered the most beautiful, The one marked 2 by the greatest number of competitors will be considered the next most Veautiful, and #0 on to the twentieth. ‘The prize will be awarded to the person whose page goes furthest down the lst in the exact order of selection chosen by the majonty. ‘The same competitor may send In any number of pages. Under this plan no parttality can be shown, and there ts practically no possibility that the prize will be divided. Should thts occur, however, Live reserves the right to divide tt among the successful competitors. nly in the margin, tear the page out, and mall It to LirR’s Contest of Beauty, 19 CONDITIONS. The contest closes at noon on January 14th, 1901. No pages recetved at Ontice after that hour will be considered. The page appears in the tssues of Lirs dated the 6th, 13th, 20th and 27th of December, 1900, As soon as possible after the close of the competition, Lire will send one hundred dollars to the Winner, and will print the page showing the order In which the faces were selected by ® majority of the competitors, together with the selections of the winner. avelopes should contain nothing but the marked pages, and be auldressed (o Live's ConTest o Beauty, 19 West THIRTY-PIRST STREET, New Yous Crry, comicbooks.com