Life, 1913-12-11 · page 9 of 40
Life — December 11, 1913 — page 9: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes the New York Board of Education's decision prohibiting teachers from becoming mothers. The "Push It Along!" editorial argues this rule is absurdly expansive—if we deny motherhood to teachers, why not extend the prohibition to suburban women, farmers' wives, slum women, and society women? The accompanying aerial photograph shows a crowded urban street, with the caption joking about a woman missing her chance to "drop" a baby on an organ grinder—dark humor mocking the absurdity of the proposed restrictions. Below, "A Pro-Suffrage Equation" uses a visual math joke: a man plus a ballot equals a man minus a woman—satirizing how women's suffrage advocates worry that voting rights would somehow diminish women's traditional roles, particularly motherhood.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Push It Along! New York Board of Education decreed that no teacher shall have the audacity to become a mother, Why not carry this utilitarian idea still further? Let it be hereafter enacted that: No woman who lives in the suburbs shall become a mother. It is perfectly obvious that she cannot give dinner parties, arrange for church fairs, play golf and bridge and entertain her city friends at week-ends, and make her afternoon calls, if she becomes ad- dicted to the habit of having children. No farmer's wife should become a mother. In the first place she has enough to do at present with running automobiles, advising her husband about investing in Wall Street, reading Mr. Bok’s articles in the Ladies’ Home Journal and attending Sunday School. No slum lady should become a mother, because by so doing she passes an incalculable burden upon the sta! Not having any paternity with whi to provide her children, they are cbliged to spend the good money of taxpayers going to school, dodging automobiles, becoming pickpockets and burglars and other _ reprehensible things besides taking the place of chil- dren in better circumstances whose parents may be able to support them. No society woman or suffragette should become a mother—but these ladies are already so highly civilized that it is unnecessary for us to any superfluous advice—they under- stand, “ MOTHER, MAY 1 HAVE ANOTHER TENNY TO DROP ON THE ORGAN GRINDER? 1 MISSED HIM TILE FIRST TIME.” Lips IPS are two in number and are placed in a conspicuous place upon the outside of the face. They are used in singing, in talking and in conveying germs. In this instance, four 2re needed. Lips vary in color, which is produced in two ways; namely, by nature and by art. Lips are used for smiling and pout- ing. Without lips there would be no conversation or oratory. Lips have a peculiar habit of lying, even when they A PRO-SUFFRAGE. EQUATION are not tired,