Life — July 22, 1909 — page 8: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 108 This page contains several distinct pieces: **"Then and Now"** is a poem contrasting a woman's past (twenty inches long, moonlit desires, simple pleasures) with her present (waist that girth, wanting earth, wearing a limousine and dollar hat). The accompanying illustration shows a woman in an elaborate hat unable to fit through a doorway—visual satire on modern women's excessive fashion and materialism compared to simpler times. **"Easy Lessons in Politics"** and **"What Every Magnate Knows"** appear to be satirical advice columns critiquing capitalism and social inequality, though text is partially cut off. **"The Arrival"** presents a comedic dialogue between a modern woman and Hades, satirizing upper-class pretension and social expectations about servants and propriety even in the afterlife. The overall theme mocks contemporary society's materialism and affectation among wealthy women.