Life, 1902-05-29 · page 9 of 20
Life — May 29, 1902 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page features a biographical article about **Guglielmo Marconi**, the inventor of wireless telegraphy. The portrait on the right shows Marconi himself. The main illustration depicts two women in conversation, with a caption about making plans for summer—a lighthearted domestic scene unrelated to the biography. Below is a satirical section titled "Stimulating" that jokes about business stimulus through a reference to W.W. Astor (a wealthy businessman). The cartoon shows theatrical performers, satirizing how easy money from trade stimulates business ambitions, suggesting that anyone with financial backing might aspire to theatrical success—a commentary on how wealth rather than talent sometimes drives careers. The page essentially contrasts Marconi's genuine innovation with society's tendency to reward wealthy amateurs.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“HAVE YOU MADE UP TOUR MIND WHERE YOU WILL CO FoR THE suMMER?” BETTER THAN THAT, 1 HAVE MADE UP MY HUSBAND'S MIND." Stimulating. “The latest report haa it that Mr, W. W, Astor Is to be made Baron Cliveden of Taplow.""—London dispatch, [THs certainly ought to stimulate business. It EN can Pet fail of dissipating the notion, un- fortunately prevalent hitherto, that & ry ly money amassed in trade doesn’t make a man substantially as QD > insufferable an ass as money otherwise got. The opportunities which the original Astors embraced no longer offer. The red man eager to swap a $500 pelt for a red blanket has passed off the stage. “py But there are others. In fact, the easy marks are always with us. Nature does her part. Do yours: young man, and who knows but you, too, may one day be raised to the peerage. 467 Guglielmo Marconi. WwW are not yet receiving all the benefits of wire- less telegraphy. But by, say, the day after to-morrow this will be remedied, so fast do we move. The stock ticker has been ticking in everybody's ears now fora long time, and it is getting to be a poor barn that cannot support a telephone. But heretofore ithas still been possible for us to get out at sea and be alone—to forget that books are being published every hour, that the Legislature at Albany is in session, that Cuba is being annexed, and that Chauncey Depew is still talking to his contemporaries. Now, however, young Gugliclmo has cut the cables, and made silence creep out of its last hole and vanish into space. A short description of wireless telegraphy may not be inapropos here, only about three or four hundred volumes having been published in the last six months. Young Marconi began his experiments in his ‘ ‘MARCONT. mother's back yard in Italy with clothes poles, and finding that he could easily communicate from one clothes pole to another without wires, he began putting them farther apart, until finally he has them on opposite sides of the Atlantic. This shows us what perseverance will accomplish, comicbooks.com