Life, 1914-04-02 · page 37 of 68
Life — April 2, 1914 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page documents a caption-writing contest where readers submitted humorous titles for an illustration titled "What Has She Just Said?" The winning entry, submitted by H. E. Field of Chicago, was: *"Families may come, and families may go, but mine sits around forever."* The page shows the five runner-up captions, which reveal the satirical concerns of early 20th-century American life: women's suffrage ("I'll lead the Suffragette Parade"), class anxiety about wealthy but dissolute suitors ("This rich scapegrace Harry"), consumerism and marriage, and domestic tensions. The reference to "Mrs. Pankhurst" (the famous British suffragist) signals that women's rights were a hot contemporary topic. The judges noted disappointment that many submissions duplicated ideas, suggesting these social themes were obvious comedy targets for the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Winning Title ‘Families may come, and families may go, 'HE winning title to the contest pic- ture, reproduced on this page, was sent in by H. E. FIELD, 4516 Norn Herwitace Avenue, Cutcaco, Itttnors. The picture—* What Has She Just Said? "—was first published in Lire’s issue of February 19th, and in the four issues following. The contest closed at noon on March 14th. There were in all 13,292 answers received. From all of the answers, thirteen were selected among the probabilities. Each of the five judges took a separate but mine sits around forever”? list of these thirteen titles and inde- pendently selected three which in his or her judgment were the best. This re- sulted in seven titles. From these seven it was then discovered that three of the judges had the winning title first on their lists. The judges were unani- mous in their disappointment of the quality of the answers as a whole. The ideas were duplicated in many of the answers, The titles finally considered by’ the judges, in addition to the winning title, were the six that follow: “T met Mrs. Pankhurst to-day and in- vited her for a week.” Art! Cv1 Bono? “ Perey agrees, Dad, that Sibyl is the bet- ter pianist, but prefers to take me— with a pianola.” Are all the stores you go to res? Don't any of them sell “Good Lord! 1 promise to marry This rich scapegrace Harry; It astonishes papa, Delights. mamma, And crushes sister Carrie.” “Money can never buy love; I've ac- cepted mother's choice.” “T'll lead the Suffragette Parade, In father’s pants and coat arrayed.” comichooks.coly)