Life — March 14, 1907 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "The Human Zoo" - Life Magazine Satire This page satirizes prominent early 20th-century American figures as specimens in a "human zoo." Two caricatures are shown: **President Eliot** (left): Harvard's president is depicted as an exotic creature—a critique of his intellectual pretensions and institutional dominance. The text notes he's transformed Harvard into "an incubator for Exalted Persons." **Theodore Roosevelt** (right, labeled "T.R."): Caricatured as an aggressive, untamed animal. The accompanying text mocks his radicalism, "rough house and reform" politics, and his dominating personality—calling him "Cosmopolitan incarnated" with blood "of all the class of earth." The satire compares these powerful figures to zoo animals on display, suggesting they're objects of public curiosity rather than serious statesmen—a common Progressive-era critique of influential personalities.