Life, 1901-05-09 · page 3 of 20
Life — May 9, 1901 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 385 This page satirizes the **Colonial Dames society**, a women's organization claiming ancestral Revolutionary War connections. A woman interrupts a Colonial Dames meeting to confess she joined under "false pretenses"—her ancestors didn't actually fight in the Revolution. She protests the organization's pretentious obsession with genealogy, calling the whole affair "a big humbug anyway." The large cartoon depicts an immigration office or processing center, labeled "Immigration Co.," crowded with diverse immigrants and their belongings, titled "Northward Ho!" The satire targets two things: (1) the snobbish gatekeeping of exclusive women's societies based on dubious ancestry claims, and (2) contemporary debates about immigration and national identity. The juxtaposition suggests irony about who truly belongs in America.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Demain. EAREST, to-morrow day, As hoping children say, Will see me on my way In any w And in the Rule in eternity, Land my love shall be Angels together. Henry Grafton Chapman. Sub Rosa. THE meeting of the Colonial Dames was well in progress, the business of the day had been disposed of and nothing re- mained but to listen to the occasional speeches, when a quiet, determined woman, with an air of hold-me-not-back, arose and. drew the attention of the chair. “Mr. President,” she said, ‘ that is, Mrs. President, or Miss, or Madam, or whatever is your right name, I have a confession to make, and I may as well get over it at once, as I shall not have any peuce of mind if I don’t. “ The fact is, 1 joined this society under false pretenses. My ancestors didn’t fight in the Revolution, and I don’t know a single blessed thing about them. Spurred on by social ambition, I made up a genealogy that there isn’t one word of truth in, and while I am on the subject, I may as well say that, tomy mind, the whole affair is a big humbug anyway. What difference does it make whether we are Colonial Dames. or not? I don’t care a bit, and I'm tired of NORTHWARD HO! Mr. Bull: We NuUDN'T BE $0 HAUGUTY AND PUT ON 80 MUCH DOG. WHY, UIs PATHER WAS JUST A PLAIN PRANKFURTER, AND ON HIS MOTHER'S SIDE ONE OP THE FAMILY WAS AN ORDINARY BOLOGNA. it, and I just simply had to let you know how I felt.”” She sat down. “Are there any reporters present?” asked the president. “No,” said the doorkeeper. “And no possible way that what has just been said can leak out into the outside world?”’ “No.” ‘Then,’ whispered the president to the secretary, ‘‘put down what the member has just said, and write af- ter it——"" She had called to the audience for a rising vote, and this was given amid tremendous applause : © That we all agree with her.” comicbooks.com