Life — November 14, 1907 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes overcrowded housing conditions in New York City. The main illustration shows a thin man (labeled as Roosevelt, appearing as a "special" agent) gesturing helplessly at a massively pregnant woman (labeled as Taft, playing "Taisey"), symbolizing the swelling housing crisis. The caption "To Crowded Houses" suggests the cartoon critiques housing policy during the Roosevelt and Taft administrations. The grotesquely enlarged female figure represents the city's exponentially growing housing problem that neither political figure adequately addressed—depicted as an out-of-control, bloated crisis neither could manage. The ornate left border with decorative vignettes was typical of Life's design aesthetic of this period.