Life, 1901-05-09 · page 7 of 20
Life — May 9, 1901 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 389 This page contains **cartoons satirizing amateur portrait painting** and **women's autonomy in early 20th century America**. The left-side cartoons mock incompetent artists: one shows a painter destroying a subject's appearance ("confounded beast"), another depicts a dealer trying to sell terrible work ("paint we three more just like it"). The right side addresses **women obtaining automobile permits in New York City**. The caption "In Chicago" suggests gender-based restrictions on driving licenses. The article critiques New York's permit system as needlessly complicated, while mocking the broader resistance to women's independence—particularly marriage prospects. The text sarcastically questions whether women should be "excluded from the privilege of running autos," exposing how social control of women masked itself as concern for their welfare. This reflects early automotive-era anxiety about female autonomy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SER WHAT YOU'VE DONE. : CONPOUNDED BEAsT | YOU'VE RUINED MY MASTERPIECE.” The Deater : BEST TUING YOU NAVE EVER DONE! PAINT ME THREE MORE JUST LIKE IT. IN. CHICAGO. “SIR, 1 WOULD LIKE TO HAVE YOUR DACOUTER FOR A WIP! “MAVE YOU ANY RECOMMENDATIONS PROM YOUR FORMER FATUENS-IN-LAW?" merits, however, they can hardly be recommended to the general public. (A. M. Robertso, San Francisco, 31.00.) A very well-written novel by Gwendolin Overton is called 7'he Heritage of Unrest. It deals with army life on the plains in the twenty years following 1860, and the title refers to the heroine, whose mother was an Apache squaw. The book is well worth reading. (The Macmillan Com- pany. $1.50.) J. B. Kerfoot. Women and Mobes. LT O woman can get a permit to run an automobile in New York, There are a number of peculiarities about the New York those permits. An alien cannot have ystem of issuing c. A man who buys his automobile Isewhere than in New York and brings it here finds great difficulty in getting one, but the buyer who buys of a local maker-has no trouble. That is queer, isn’t it? But as to women : Should they all be excluded from the privilege of running mobes? No! A woman who is competent ought to have a permit. The sex, as a sex, is no more unfit to be trusted with a bubble than with a horse. F the pesky kidnappers would only some- mes steal sore ove worth while! Why don’t they steal—oh—say -Jobn W. Gates? There would be a big reward offered for the return of Mr. Gatea, and probably a larger one for bis continued detention, and if the stealers worked things right they could get both. Besides, they would have the udvan- tage of Mr Gates’s soctety until rescued, and that alone would be worth some nek, There would be good money In plifering Mr. Gates, ‘and he has no parents to be distressed. comicbooks.com