Life, 1911-02-02 · page 18 of 52
Life — February 2, 1911 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three separate satirical pieces from Life magazine: **"Trusting the Future"**: A husband convinces his wife to be photographed in her current fashionable outfit (hobble skirt, basket hat)—implying that in two years he'll want to mock how ridiculous her present-day fashion choices look. This satirizes the rapid changes in women's fashion during this era and male condescension toward women's style. **"A Craving Eggs Them On"**: This attacks women's suffragists, comparing their desire for voting rights to an addictive "drink habit" that requires constant stimulation. The piece dismisses suffragism as mere excitement-seeking rather than legitimate political activism. This reflects anti-suffrage propaganda common before women gained voting rights. **"Dense"**: A brief joke playing on the word "dense"—Rhode Island's population density versus the intellectual density of a character named Aldrich (likely a political figure, unclear from context). The cartoons reflect early 20th-century attitudes: mockery of women's fashion, hostility toward women's suffrage, and casual sexism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
254 Trusting the Future “"M y dear,” says the husband, as his wife comes to join him for a walk, attired in her hobble skirt, basket hat and other things of the present mode, “T want you to come to the photogra- pher’s and have your picture made just as you are.” “Why, do you like me so well in this costume?” she beams. “Well, my idea is that two years from now I can show you the picture, and you will say the things about it that I would like to say about your appearance just now.” Kisses Syllabuss—A kiss divided into sections. Rebuss—A kiss that puzzles you. Incubuss—To dream of kissing the wrong Blunderbuss—To be caught kissing her. Pluribuss—Many kisses in one evening. Omnibuss—To kiss everybody. (He): MAVEN’T 1 MET YOU SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE? A Craving Eggs Them On HE trouble with a large proportion of the more urgent contemporary woman-sufiragists seems to be that their minds have got the drink habit—have been stimulated, that is, by successive excitements of one kind or another, until the normal cannot any longer satisfy them. They follow Votes for Women just as some of them followed the stock market and others the mirage of social ambition, because they have a craving that they cannot manage, and need a strong diversion, “savy! MOTHER, U'VE BEEN PRAYIN’ FOR A PAIK O° SKATES FOR EVER $O LONG, DON’T YOU THINK WE'D BETTER STOP HERE AN’ GET THEM AN’ SAVE Goo THE TROUBLE?” Dense IGGS: I see by the census reports that Rhode Island is the most densely populated state in the country. Jaccs: Its tough though that because Rhode Island is so dense the rest of the country should have to stand for YIND THE GIRL WHO WOULD NF! never MARRY A Aldrich, SMOTER. comicbooks.com