Life, 1911-03-16 · page 26 of 44
Life — March 16, 1911 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
**Top Section - "Life's Family Album: Orson Lowell"** This is a biographical feature interviewing illustrator Orson Lowell. The satire lies in the self-aggrandizing interview format—Lowell humorously inflates minor accomplishments (drawing for magazines at 75 cents per submission, contributing to a publication called "the Liar" that folded). The piece gently mocks artistic pretension while acknowledging his genuine reputation in quality magazines (Century, Scribner's). The humor rests on his pompous, self-absorbed persona. **Bottom Left - "Stamping Out Smallpox"** This is serious advocacy critiquing mandatory smallpox vaccination. The author argues that while smallpox deaths were minimal (2 deaths in a period), vaccinations caused 13 tetanus deaths from contamination—an early vaccine-safety argument challenging medical authority's willingness to accept collateral deaths. **Bottom Right - Anti-Suffragette Cartoon** The cartoon depicts a disheveled man labeled an "anti-suffragette member of parliament" returning home drunk ("on a spree"). The satire suggests opponents of women's voting were hypocritical—denying women political voice while exercising poor judgment themselves.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“EA PE - Life’s Family Album Orson Lowell N the year 1871 the German Empire was re-established, the Irish Church was disestablished, the great fire in Chi- cago took place, and Orson Lowell was born. While Professor Bell was per- fecting his telephone Orson Lowell was taking his first. lessons in breakfast foods, at that time beginning to appear on the American market. In Wyoming, Iowa, his native place,” he is put down as inhabitant No. 729. At the age of twelve—but we must let him be interviewed in the usual manner. “At the age of twelve,” he said, as we sat in his palatial studio in Twenty- second Street, “I decided to remove my family to Chicago, where I felt that I could bring up my parents more advan- tageously.’” “Was this the first real artistic crav- ing you had, Mr. Lowell? "* “Dear me, no! I began as soon ‘as I could hold a crow-quill pen. I drew daily, under my father’s direction, such things as scythes, helves, wheelbarrows, silk hats and chairs of all sorts, and then, you know, people and millinery be- came easy matters.’” “And in Chicago—?" “T drew for the magazines, sometimes Stamping Out Smallpox HE early fall of each year is the pe- riod when the innocent children of the United States are rounded up and branded as the property of the medical profession. What does it cost? We will ignore the dollars, but, from August 18 to No- vember 23, 1909, there were in the United States two deaths from smallpox. In order, however, to accomplish this im- menscly desirable result and stamp out this dreaded disease, the mortality of which statistics show to be about 1 in 234 cases, it required, in the same period, 13 deaths from tetanus, or lockjaw, directly following vaccination, to say nothing of other complications which the medical profession is none too careful to report. Of course, smallpox must be stamped out, no matter how many children are killed in the stamping. Motto of the G. A. R. E care not who makes the laws, so long as we get the pensions. ting as high as seventy-five cents a drawing; but my exorbitant demands were too much, and the Liar, for whom I was one of the principal contributors, had to suspend publication.”” “But is it not possible for you, Mr. ABW R— BEEN ON A SPREE? OH, No! Lowell, to convey some idea of your admirable technique and the distinction always with which you clothe women? "? “Dear me, sonal?”? “But so many young people vaulting ambitions wish to know. it due to the Chicago fire?” “Tt was due, I think, to my reerea- tion.”” “And that is——? “ Making ‘more drawings.”” Mr. Lowell, it may be remarked in passing, joined the Lire family in 1907; previous to that he had gained a great reputation as one of sour very best American black-and-white artists, his drawings in the Century, Scribner's and other magazines placing him in the first rank among illustrators. “Isn't this true?"’ we asked him as we modestly showed him this paragraph, “As if I knew anything about it,”” he replied. “ By the way, where do you live?" “New Rochelle,” “And what do you do when you are not drawing pictures?” “T spend most of my time keeping the wistaria from tearing the verandah off my house.”* your aren't you getting per- with Was ONLY AN ANTI-SUFFRAGETTE MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ON HIS WAY HOME 10 DINNER comicbooks.com