Life, 1902-02-13 · page 13 of 30
Life — February 13, 1902 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine cartoon satirizes social pretension and servants. Two fashionably dressed women discuss a man's behavior: when making social calls, he preferred sitting in the kitchen with the maid rather than in the parlor with the ladies. The joke targets Victorian class hierarchies and gender conventions. The "horrid" revelation mocks the women's shock that a gentleman would find a servant more appealing company than society ladies. The cartoon implies the maid's genuine, unpretentious nature made her "more attractive" than the affected, snobbish socialites—undercutting both feminine vanity and class pretensions. The small dog observing the scene adds domestic humor, suggesting even pets witness such absurdities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
MORE ATTRACTIVE, “was THAT MI, GAYLOR?” “YES, THE HORRID THING! ME TOLD ME TUAT OFTEN IN MAKING CALLS, WHEN HE SAW THE MAID WHO CAME TO THR DOOR, HE WOULD RATHER SIT IN THE KITCHEN." comicbooks.com