Life, 1908-11-19 · page 18 of 28
Life — November 19, 1908 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**"The Specialist" Essay & Cartoons:** This page critiques excessive specialization in American thought and industry. The top cartoon shows Uncle Sam and Dr. Stork at a factory labeled "Stork & Co. Infant Industries," where babies are being mass-produced with ethnic/national labels (Spanish-American, Italian-American, etc.). Uncle Sam asks if there are "just plain Americans"—satirizing how immigrants were being categorized rather than assimilated. The accompanying essay argues specialists are narrow-minded, arrogant, and creatively stunted, hiding "emptiness with technicalities." True innovators, it claims, are called "cranks," not specialists. **Lower cartoon:** A man finds a hidden pin in a public chair—depicting petty urban annoyances. **"Manhattan Mike" dialogue:** Contrasts Pittsburgh Pete's amazement at New York's cleanliness with his own poor hygiene—likely ethnic humor about regional/immigrant stereotypes common to early 20th-century Life magazine. The satire targets both industrial conformity and intellectual rigidity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
2) Ga) @ 2 G The Specialist PemEEA HE specialist occupies the same relation to thought that the trusts do to trade. And when he gets to the point where ll he can successfully throttle all ! competition, Liberty will be even more of a by-word than it is now. The motto of the specialist is Con- sistency, a supreme contempt for others, and a passionate resentment of all inter- ference. All specialis: re incompetent, for the reason that they think in grooves, are slaves to conventionality and tradition, and are possessed by a constantly devel- oping egotism, which increases in pro- portion as they degenerate. For when people are occupied with one thing, to the exclusion of all others, they are bound to degenerate. Their power of ad- justment grows constantly weaker, and they lose their perspective. A specialist is a man who covers his emptiness with technicalities. He bristles with phrases and “ facts,’’ quotes authori- lies and refuses to listen, even to one of Lis owa kind. For he is not without envy, even in his own province. In proportion as he becomes acquainted with the body of facts that others who have gone before him have discovered, is he restricted in his imagination. And his ability to create becomes atrophied. Uncle Sam: us Dr. Stork: xo; THER Great thinkers—creators—are always followed by specialists, who strut com- placently in borrowed clothes. The man who gives the world a really new and original thought is never called a specialist. His name is usually Crank ‘SPANISH RUSSIAN] AMERICAN| fe : wring ORK ef PT Rcnanne N’T YOU ANY JUST PLAIN AMERICAN? "S NO DEMAND FOR THAT KIND ANHATTAN MIKE: What do you think of New York, Pete? Pittssurcu Petre: Why, it’s such a clean place! I've been here three weeks, and I ain't had to wash my hands yet! PEEPS AT PEOPLE IN PUBLIC ME FINDS A PIN HIDDEN IN THE LEFT FRONT LEG OF A CHAIR, BUT