Life, 1911-04-06 · page 28 of 76
Life — April 6, 1911 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical pieces mocking American consumer culture and gender dynamics circa early 20th century. **"Life's Reform League"** (left column and cartoons) parodies a fake organization promoting extravagant baby fashion. It ridicules wealthy Americans' obsession with conspicuous consumption—recommending a baby dress with a thirty-yard train and $2,500 wardrobes lasting only six weeks. A letter complains about servants dressing like their mistresses; the "League" facetiously promises to lobby Congress to legally prevent non-citizens from wearing fashionable designs. The satire targets both class anxiety and the absurdity of fashion-obsessed society. **"Old Men for Council"** (right column) praises elderly statesmen like John Bigelow (age 93) and Wayne MacVeagh as voices of wisdom and social conscience. It advocates for retaining experienced elder advisors who promote equity and care for the poor, contrasting their "fatherliness" with younger society's frivolous concerns. The cartoon series illustrates how a comic artist's idea—funny when dreamed—becomes forgotten upon waking, yet earns $500 from an editor, satirizing the creative process and publishing economics.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
672 the use of your automobile three hours a day, they ask for nothing else except an occasional bright smile. The head dressmaker takes complete charge of everything. All that husbands will be asked to do is to make a preliminary de- posit of five thousand dollars as a guar- antee of good faith. The object of the League must never be forgotten. It is to place American styles in American hands and to give our American women a chance to pre- sent an appearance before the men that will be philosophically interpretative of the highest art designs. Our spring baby clothes are out. For Easter we recommend a simple point lace dress for babies of six months, with a train not more than thirty yards long, which can be wound up on a reel when not in use. In babies’ underwear we offer a large variety, We can positively guarantee to furnish a baby’s wardrobe lasting fully six weeks for only twenty- five hundred dollars, Our Mothers’ Congress will be held shortly. All are invited to attend. One of the features the first day will be a demonstration of how to dress a baby completely in only three hours and a half. We have received the following: Dear Sir: If you are really a Reform League as you announce, can you tell me why you do ‘not invent some method to prevent cooks from wearing the same styles as their mistresses? This morning my cook came out in a dupli- cate of my last costume, and with bare feet. T don’t dare say anything to her for fear she will leave—and she is the best one we have had for three weeks. Mes. G-—- H— We confess this is a problem. We in- tend as soon as possible to take up this matter with Congress and get a law passed making it impossible for anyone who has not been naturalized to wear our designs. For the present we can only counsel patience. Our motto is “America for the Americans.” Lire’s Reroxm Leacur. Old Men for Counsel ORE of us who are ambitious to be truly serviceable ought to take care of our health and our bodies be- times, so that when our minds have ma- tured and we have come by long experi- ence, study, observation and practice in living, to something like wisdom, we may retain the physical and mental energy to make it useful. Just now we have some very valuable old men who have passed out of the ordinary pas- sions and ambitions of life, into a serene atmosphere of fatherliness towards all the people. Their care is all for pos- terity, and some of them bring great THE Comic ARTIST DREAMS A FUNNY IDEA A WORSE LAUGHS So HARD AT.IT ME BREAKS A BLOOD vessee $1% HUNDRED AND THIATY FOUR THOUSAND READERS LAUGH THEMSELWES SICK » %) yi 14 MIS DREAM HE TELLS IT TO MIS Wire, AN EDITOR ROLLS Ate OVER HIMSELF WITH MIRTH — AND GIVES HIM Five HUNDRED DOLLARS FOR 1 BUT- wren ne wanes UP, HE CANT REMEMBER IT so orteNn! reputation to back their preachments of encouragement and good-will and their exhortations to comity and equity. John Bigelow is the dean of them, flashing out from time to time in the newspa- pers with an effective letter on some issue of politics, religion or r2-ernment. Mr. Bigelow at ninety-three has no coe- val as lively as himself or as effective in public utterances, but Wayne Mac- Veagh, Henry Lee Higginson, and Pres- ident Eliot, all about seventy-seven, come to mind as notable and recent preach- ers hereabouts of sound doctrine to their fellows. Mr. MacVeagh, writing fervently in behalf of the poor, lately and piously urged the Government to relieve them of certain burdens, Major Higginson (in the Atlantic) in a fine strain of philosophic seasoning, lately invited his fellow rich men to freer and more copious experiment with the joy of spending their moncy in the service of society. President Eliot, since he quit office, has been about as busy as before, and in services more diffused than ever. He talked to the Harvard students the other day (for the first time in two years) and expounded to them that in no form of government were there such inequalities of power as in a democracy, and that. no people ever exhibited such inequalities of power as the pcople of the United States, The reason is, he said, that the essence of democracy is freedom of the comicbooks.com