Life, 1909-09-16 · page 31 of 32
Life — September 16, 1909 — page 31: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page announces Life's upcoming "Suffragette Number," mocking the women's suffrage movement through exaggerated enthusiasm. The illustration shows a caricatured suffragette in period dress—likely representing the stereotype of suffrage activists as overly militant or unfeminine. The satire works through ironic hyperbole: Life claims this special issue will "definitely settle" whether women should vote and whether a woman could become President, presenting the suffrage question as absurdly momentous ("Greatest Problem of the Age"). The promise to feature a "Man's Rights Movement" cartoon suggests counter-mockery of anti-suffrage arguments. The page also announces a new recurring feature: "The Six Funniest Things of the Week," where editors will select humorous content from contemporary publications through democratic voting. This reflects early 1900s opposition to women's suffrage, which wasn't granted federally until 1920.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Are You a Suffragette? Or, have you doubts on the subject ? Next week, we are pleased to announce, the question will be definitely settled. LiFeE’s Suffragette Number, with a Colored Cover by Phillips, will be out at the usual time. Every woman in the land will welcome this scintillating addition to the Greatest Problem of the Age. Will our next President be a woman? Nobody will know until this number of LIFE is out. Among other features may be noted a cartoon by Orson Lowell, a Man’s Rights Movement, and a glorious galaxy of contemporaneous conviviality. COMING Hudson, - - Sept. 30 Great White Way, Oct. 21 Chorus Girl, - Oct, 7 Midnight, - - Oct. 28 Spinsters, - Oct. 14 THE SIX FUNNIEST THINGS OF THE WEEK Every day, from all over the world, there comes to this office a heterogeneous mass of contemporaneous literature, effervescent, evanescent, wise, witty, melancholy, menda- cious, epigrammatic, spontaneous, eclectic, plagiaristic, pungent, perishable and perma- nent. From this mass we shall select the six things which in our judgment are the funniest things we have seen for seven consecutive days. Some of these things may be very old— as far back as the days of Heraclitus. Others may have been floatii round on the surface of periodicals for months or years. Others may be fresh from the mind of some recent writer. We shall not use them in the chronol ul order of their publication, but only in the order that they come under our personal observation, during these seven days. They will all be short—from a one-line epigram to a brief anecdote or colloquy. We shall make no attempt to trace them back to the original source, but we shall credit them to the periodical from which they are taken. Where the author is known, we shall also give him credit. Our method of selection will be by a process of elimination; that is, we will keep on sifting until we have only six funny things left. These six things will, in our combined judgment, be the six funniest things of the week. Each editor of this paper will have a vote. The result will be published in each number of Lire, for the benefit of our readers. comicbooks.com