Life — April 9, 1908 — page 5: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Content Analysis This Life magazine page satirizes a real cross-country automobile journey. The main illustration shows "The Zip," a car overloaded with supplies, traveling from New York to Paris (humorously labeled, as the car clearly cannot cross the ocean). The article describes James S. Metcalfe's actual expedition, mentioning real people including William Taft (a former Presidential candidate and Yale graduate) and Anthony Comstock (a famous vice crusader). The text humorously documents the car's progress through upstate New York toward Chicago, noting enthusiastic public receptions and humorous incidents. The bottom illustration captioned "Clothing the Bare Limbs—'Comstock's Coming!'" appears to be a separate joke about Comstock's puritanical reputation, showing figures hurriedly covering themselves—a visual pun on his censorious nature.