Life, 1911-01-05 · page 58 of 104
Life — January 5, 1911 — page 58: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two main satirical pieces criticizing early 20th-century American institutions. **"Guide to the Magazines"** is a humorous matching game pairing magazine types with reader demographics—suggesting specific publications suit particular professions and interests (auto racers read Century, suffragists read Woman's World, etc.). **"The Modern Department Store"** is a serious critique attacking department stores as socially destructive forces. The author argues they: - Exploit workers with low wages and no advancement prospects - Sell inferior goods manufactured cheaply - Manipulate women consumers through visual display and credit systems, encouraging frivolous spending - Damage women's taste and judgment - Waste women's time better spent on household duties **"A Born Politician"** is a brief joke about suffrage: a woman argues cooks should support women's voting because each cook "controls two votes—her own and that of her mistress," implying domestic servants influence their employers' political views. The page reflects Progressive Era anxieties about consumer culture, women's economic behavior, and labor exploitation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Guide to the Magazines SINGER should be accompanied by Harper's. An auto racer should stick to the Century. The sailor should study the Atlantic. ‘The devourer of books should try the Liter- ary Digest. ‘The widower should look for the House- keeper. The tired man should ask for an Outing. The librarian should look for The Bookman. ‘The church social committee should have the Bazaar. The suffragist should insist on the Woman's World. ‘The sick man should cling to Lire. The astute chicken raiser wants the Smart Set. 5 The pugilist should seek the Arena. ‘ The Modern Department Store ‘The coal dealer should ask for Collier's. The walking delegate should look for Popu- HY has the modern department store grown to such lar Mechanics. : q The clockmaker should have the Dial. The census taker should list Smiths. immense proportions without a word of protest from anyone? The reason is, of course, that every de- partment store carries a large amount of advertising patronage. No newspaper could afford to criticise Yet the department store, as it exists to-day, is one of the most disintegrating influences we have. It gives employment to a lot of people who, from the first moment that they start on their work, are hopelessly and perma- nently reduced to a cheap mental level, never to hope to rise again. It pays them bare living wages and immures them in a prison from which there is no hope of-escape. Few rise above this deadly leveling. On the other hand, the department store deals in the cheapest kind of material. Nothing that is really excellent can find a place there, as it would cost too much. It could not be “turned over” rapidly enough. This has encouraged manufacturers to make only the most slip-shod goods—barely good enough to pass muster in a casual inspection. Thus we have furniture that falls to pieces at the slightest provocation, and utensils in name only. Let anyone try to find a really first-class piece of hardware in a department store if he doubts this. By spreading before the eye a vast surface of the most glittering kind of truck women in growing, seething quantities are attracted. They come to buy a particular Jones, THE aUroMouiLE ENTHUstAST, ‘ing and end by buying a lot of other things as “ bargains” that they had no previous MAS SUDDENLY GIVEN UP MOTORING, AND intention of buying. Thus the majority of women who shop acquire a sort of irre- REGRETS THAT HE DIDN'T DO SO SOCNER. sponsible mental attitude. Their taste is vitiated and the habit of frittering away ee their money for inconsequential things becomes a kind of disease, like tippling. Their A Born Politician time is also taken up, when it could be better expended in attending to their house- IRST NEW WOMAN: It is very im- hold or social duties. t<, Perant to pet AN cooks intercaned The system of charge accounts in department stores is a diabolical affair. Itis in the suffrage movement. ej _atis Sucous New! Wowans (Whyiso? nicely calculated to appeal to. a woman's vanity. Cash customers have to wait longer First New Woman: Because every for their change than those who have accounts and are not treated so well by the cook controls two votes—her own and salespeople. that: of -hers mistress The department store, as it exists to-day, has done more to develop a race of SRV THAT'S the difference between {<™Hle spendthrifts and to lower the standard of taste and beauty than any single plain bridge and auction ‘iMfluence. Any intelligent person who, with an unprejudiced mind, will take the bridge?” trouble to walk through one of these horrible mechanical shambles, cannot fail to be “ About a hundred dollars an hour.” —_ impressed with this fact. comicbooks.com