Life, 1911-05-11 · page 7 of 44
Life — May 11, 1911 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page introduces a feature about "joy riding"—a then-contemporary phenomenon of young people stealing cars for recreational drives. The text credits President Woodrow Wilson with helping legitimize the phrase through official use, giving it dignity it "would otherwise not have had." The illustration titled "Off in the Tranquil Hour" depicts a car traveling a winding road at night, with silhouetted horseback riders nearby—likely suggesting the contrast between traditional transportation and modern automobile culture, or perhaps implying danger/lawlessness associated with nocturnal joy riding. The page appears satirical about how euphemistic language ("joy riding") sanitizes what is essentially car theft, a growing social concern among early-20th-century Americans.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
This Number HE making of words still gocs merrily on. Every few years a new crop steals into the language and takes its place with the immortals. At present it is too soon to state that the Joy Rider will be one of these. It is enough to know that he occupies just now a distinct place of his own and really stands for something. It is most superfluous to say that at first the joy rider nieant_ a man who appropriated his ‘master’s car and stole away in the night to enjoy himself. It was not long, how- ever, before the phrase began to stand sponsor for other things. Woodrow Wilson helped it along by using the ex- pression, “joy riding corporations,” thus giving it a dignity that it would otherwise not have had. In the course of a short time joy riding has come to sti for a combination of things; there’s a certain gladness and recklessness about it that appeals to our adventurous spirits ; it is undoubtedly wicked and therefore attractive; ladies are concerned in it, which gives it a dash of color. It is dan- gerous, which is always necessary in the finest kinds of pleas- ure. It is the kind of phrase that lends itself to symbo —a fit representative of a certain sort of civilization that we have grown accustomed to and barely wink There 1s an irresistible dash and go to it. To typify all this is the object of this present number of Lire, And to our friends the joy riders everywhere we offer our distinguished consideration “OFT IN THE TRANQUIL HOUR——' comicbooks.com