Life, 1912-04-18 · page 33 of 54
Life — April 18, 1912 — page 33: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This Life magazine page satirizes the early 1900s women's suffrage movement through multiple angles: **Top cartoon** ("Political Equality Nursery"): Depicts a chaotic nursery where women hold political meetings while children run wild—mocking the argument that women entering politics would neglect domestic duties. **"Proposed Platform"**: Fakes a suffragette platform with absurd demands: animal rights, wives living within husbands' incomes, and limiting ladies' hats to $15. The satire positions feminists as simultaneously concerned with trivial matters (hat prices) and radical restrictions on women's independence. **Bottom cartoon** ("Early Stone Age in New England"): Suggests that gender conflict over voting rights represents societal regression. **The joke**: The magazine ridicules suffragettes by portraying their concerns as either domestic neglect or frivolous consumption, while the final quip—"cry, cry, again"—dismisses women's political ambitions. The satire exemplifies anti-suffrage propaganda common in early-20th-century American media.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
IN THE POLITICAL EQUALITY NURSERY Bye, Baby Bunting, Mother's gone to meeting, Gone to get her ballot in. —With apologies to Mother Goose. AT chap next door is having a terrible argument A Proposed Platform with his wife.” “Bue 1 don't bear ha vekearan” Hovixc waited for some time in sain: foe the a “Why should you-when he hane’t spoken? ragette party to promulgate and publish a platform, we modestly suggest the following as a basis: “The recall of all birds and animals to their native haunts, with full permission to let them roam at will and to raise their young instead of being killed off by the hired representatives of millinery and tailors’ trades.” “The due insistence, to be enforced if necessary. by proper legislation, that all wives shall live within. their husbands’ incomes, even if by so doing they are obliged to dress in a more or less becoming manner. “The restriction of the cost of ladies’ hats, not to ex- ceed $15 per hat, this being three times the cost of the best hats for men.” If these items meet with the unanimous approval of all suffragettes, and we pride ourselves that they will, we shall be very glad to furnish others from time to time in order to complete the whole interesting affair. [F 38 first you don't succeed in convincing your hus- EARLY STONE AGE IN NEW ENGLAND band, cry, cry, again! comicbooks.com