Life, 1915-04-01 · page 18 of 72
Life — April 1, 1915 — page 18: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes turn-of-the-century anxieties about women's fashion and marital instability. The main cartoon depicts a woman whose extravagant hat and voluminous skirts have become so enormous that her husband (the "Cucumber Trust President") loses faith in constancy itself—comparing women's unpredictability to market collapse. The joke plays on the absurdity of elaborate Edwardian women's fashion (16-yard skirts, impossibly tall hats) as evidence of female unreliability. The accompanying text mocks a wealthy businessman whose trust in cucumbers parallels his faith in his wife; when she arrives transformed by fashionable dress, both collapse. The lower section includes period humor about women's multiple appearances and the caption's joke that something "circular" on the hat proves its existence—satirizing the sheer illogic of contemporary fashion. The page reflects anxieties about women's changing roles and the perceived frivolity of women's fashion as threatening to masculine certainty.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
546 tistics that cucumber is stationary, con- servative fruit which cannot fail God By mathemat- ical tables he have computed that every vine grows six cucumbers, every acre 111111 vines, each cucumber are worth 1c per, there are 3333333 cucumber fields in America and cucumber crop have not failed for 8 years. Hon. Pres of Cucumber Trust set. silently scratching head with fountain pen. ‘In moment of great decision,’ he say so, ‘it are good form to think of objeck which are most precious to human heart. Therefore I shall think of my wife. In this great crisis where all fortune is in jepperdy I shall fix mind to that dearie, sweetish little girl. She shall not fail me. That slimmish figure of womanhood with gas-pipe skirt and six-foot hat shall be evermore before my eyclids to prove that Husband is always right, that love & cucumbers cannot fail a trusting heart.’ Knock- knock to door. A femaline laughter approaches into room—and_beholt! That slimmish figure with enlarged hattery, which he left 1n morning and believe shall never change, with ex- treme faith peculiar to finance, arrive there. Wideness of drygoods surround- ing her ankles give her fat-lady ap- pearance. She are human pyramid with small hat resembling cork betop her hat. ‘You can never tell the way they will jump,’ grone Hon Cucumber Pres, so he lose all faith in whatever comes, and never can see pickles with seriousness any more. Consequence of this are; failure arrives and Hon. Pickle Pres must carn living by honest toil.” Miss Alice Furioki make response Ly not hearing me and tickle fringe ap- preciatively along the wrists of her dressmaking. “And if ladies change thusly, day by night, one day resembling broom- stick under a platter, next day re- sembling pile of pillows with spool on top, what shall we expect of love which should not change but must remain stationary like Grand Central Station? Can Miss Alice Furioki mean same im- portance to me when her photograph in January are the grandmother of her portrait in July? Task to know with continuous discouragement.” “You can tell she is wearing hat because something circular are pinned to her brain” “T am opinuated to think,” deplore Miss Alice Furioki, whose engagement to the man she is married to will con- tinue till next divorce, “that this gownd, with 16 yards more pink around skirt, will look very smart-set and flirtatious. Meantimes you are per- mitted to kiss me so you will learn to be less jayseed in American cus- toms.” Such useless, Hoping you are the same Yours truly Hasnimura Toco, (Per Wallace Ini arithmetic appear deliciously Of Two Evils ADGI Wh: to be married? should you so wish It would only bring you worry. Marjorie: I know it, dear; but I'm worrying more because I’m not married. COMMIT- HAIRMAN OF THE T Is this the place where you are happy all the time? St. Peter (proudly) : “Well, I represent the It is, sir. nion, and if we come in we can only agree to be happy eight hours a da: