Life — August 1, 1907 — page 3: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Page Analysis This page is **primarily advertising** with one cartoon element. The ads promote automotive and rubber products typical of the early 1900s (Truffault-Hartford shock absorbers, Firestone tires, and a Cadillac Model H). The only cartoon is titled **"Mary Had a Little Lamb,"** a visual pun on the nursery rhyme. It depicts a well-dressed woman on Wall Street with a small boy and a lamb, satirizing the stock market or financial speculation of the era. The joke appears to reference "lambs"—a period term for naive investors who were easily fleeced. By placing an actual lamb on Wall Street with a child-like figure, the cartoonist mocks gullible market participants who lose money to savvier traders. The cartoon's meaning relies on understanding "lamb" as financial slang for a victim of fraud or manipulation.