Life — February 8, 1912 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "And Hearts Are Trumps" - Life Magazine, February 8, 1912 This is a "Bridge Number" issue of Life magazine featuring a card-game themed illustration. The image shows a woman holding playing cards arranged around her in a bridge layout—the card game was enormously popular among American middle and upper-class women in the early 1900s. The title "And Hearts Are Trumps" is a pun: it references both the card suit and romantic sentiment. The woman's fashionable Edwardian dress and composed demeanor suggest this is social commentary on how card games—particularly bridge—dominated women's leisure time and social gatherings during this era. The illustration by C. Coles Phillips appears to be satirizing or simply celebrating this cultural obsession with bridge among women of the period.