Life, 1913-03-27 · page 17 of 60
Life — March 27, 1913 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes 1920s anxieties about women's fashion and morality. The top cartoon shows a parrot refusing to speak—the joke being the parrot's silence mirrors a husband's embarrassment about his wife (Aunt Mary), likely implying she's dressed immodestly or scandalously by period standards. The article "Only a Readjustment" mocks conservative concerns about women discarding clothing. It sardonically argues that while the fashion industry loses material sales, women will spend *more* money on accessories and minimal garments—turning nudity into a profitable enterprise. The satire targets both prudish alarm about women's liberation AND the fashion industry's ability to monetize even less clothing. This reflects 1920s debates over "flapper" culture, shorter hemlines, and changing women's roles—with Life magazine using humor to critique both moral panic and capitalist opportunism.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“1 SUPPOSE The parrot; DAMN IT, SAY someTHING! THAT'S HIS WIFE, AUNT MARY?” Only a Readjustment For some time past we have had a fore- boding that the present tendency of women to discard their clothing and return to the pastoral simplici ally hurt business —The Argonaut. of nudity must eventy- UR friend is too pessimistic. It is true that the curtailment of habili- ments has affected some branches of trade, but in the long run the discarding of clothes by the ladics means merely a readjustment. Those people who have been working on materials will devote themselves to the art of clothing women in nothing. It is a well known law of woman's clothes that the less she wears the more it costs. Nudity is in reality extremely ineffcetive. Nudit quires a little somethin It is i thin comicbooks.com