Life — July 24, 1913 — page 7: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Life" Magazine Page: "Life" Essay and Illustration This page contains a poem titled "To My Absent Stenographer" by Corinne Rockwell Swain, addressing a missing office worker with humorous complaints about lacking stenographic assistance. The main illustration below shows a crowd of well-dressed people waiting at a train platform labeled "Point Pleas" for "the Saturday afternoon express." The cartoon satirizes leisure-class weekend travel—likely mocking the predictable, ritualistic nature of affluent Americans' Saturday excursions to seaside or country destinations. The crowded platform suggests this is an established social convention, with the formal dress and organized queue emphasizing the formulaic nature of weekend recreation among the middle and upper classes.