Life, 1915-05-13 · page 42 of 52
Life — May 13, 1915 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising and travel promotion**, not political satire. The dominant content includes: **"The Indefinable Something"** — an essay on social appearance and class anxiety. It argues that Americans obsess over appearing genteel and respectable, willing to hide moral failings (being "crooked") rather than suffer social embarrassment. The piece critiques how commercial success and vanity drive wasteful spending on maintaining appearances. **Advertisements dominate the layout:** - Delaware & Hudson railroad promoting Adirondack vacation destinations - Hotel Biltmore in New York - P&O Cunard steamship lines offering world tours - **Woodbury's Facial Soap** (largest ad) — a skin-care product using pseudo-scientific claims about daily skin renewal The cartoon illustration (left) appears to show leisure activities in the Adirondacks, supporting the travel promotion. **For modern readers:** This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about social climbing and consumer culture—the idea that appearance and consumption signal respectability. The soap ad exemplifies how advertising exploited these insecurities.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Indefinable Something N° national commission has yet been appointed to regulate manners. Yet, how we are to act and what we are to do are never absent from our calculations. Nothing is so important to us as our appearance before others. No man would dare to admit to himself that he is not a gentleman; no woman, that she is not a lady. This ruling idea, older than man (for vanity is discern- ible in animals) is the basis of our extravagance. In a land where com- mercial success is supreme above all other successes, there may be a kind of distinction in a man’s being crooked, “Adirondack provided, as the slangists put it, he has = . Regi on “got away with it”. 1 make_your shin gi But such a man who, according to A; t of Northem New York offers a wonderful simple Christian principles, must sizzle what you world versity resrennione: There are forest free in hell when he dies and is quite in- | /| bie bo hewe fish—hotels and clubs with unsurpassed fac different to such a fate, would burn i wy ties for golf and Seonlec lovely dal cee ideal for up with mortification if caught in some | Your skin, jie the rest of your canoeing or motor-boating. You canchoose from va ia body, is continual changing. s a wealth of delightful localities reached by the obvious social four Pare What we are old’'skin dies, new. skin forms all trying hardest to do {s to make it E ‘d ashi b off very day, in washing, you rub o Delaware & Hudson appear that we are to the manner born. the dead ckin. ines erefore we are ready to speni his is your opportunity—you can Li Theref d d Thi pot Shortest, Quickest and Best money which ought to be conserved, or, make the new skin what you would Between New York and Montreal indeed, to make any sacrifice to keep love to have it by using the follow- ing treatment regularly: LakeGeorge,LakeChamplain,SaratogaSprings, up appearances. The memory of a snub ; ‘4 ee Lake Placid, Sharon Springs and Cooperstown is more enduring than debt, more rank- Tonight— . are unequalled in their attractiveness as vacation ling than ingratitude. Much as we Just before retiring, work up a resorts. These and many other points in the - ean A warm water lather of Woodbury’s mountain and lake country draw a host of abhor the vices and vulgarity of Sir Facial Soap in your hands. Apply pleasure Pitt Crawley, his picture is uncon- it to your face and rub it into the during the sciously softened in our eyes by the pores thoroughly—always with an Summer months, unalterable fact that he was a noble- if upward and outward motion xuue “D&H™ thyoush taing aan if it we with warm water, then with cold— leave, New EG | man; indeed, if it were not for that the colder the better. If possible, “er oanengers ‘on the rub your face for a few minutes Hudson River BoatLines | = with a piece of ice. can make connections Woodbury’s Facial Soap is the work of with "D & H' trains at a skin specialist. Albany and Troy, s vil make your skin eee as 4 ——5 the first time you use it. Make ita nightly Send 6c in stamps for habit. and before long you will see a decided improvement—a promise of that ‘of photogr loreller omplesion tcl the steady use ty of Woodbury’s always brings. descriptions of the ‘A 25¢ cake of Woodbury’s Facial Soap is sufficient for a month or six weeks of this treatment. Get a cake today. It is for sale at dealers everywhere throughout the United States and Canada. Wr for sample —For 4c we will send ek’s size” cake. For toc samples of 4 Woodburys Facial Soap, Facial Cream on RAIL AND ff The Center Bese eiidectnen tie eee oe w Jergens Co., STEAMER of Business | festeebegetn Th dnd Berth, Ontario. and Social = Life of the It Meant the Same Thing Metropolis “Well,” sl ing ed, “ a "she inquired, “what can T SOL MER al do for you? Do you want employment?” PRESIDENT “Lady,” replicd the tramp, “you 1000 OUTSIDE ROOMS means well, but you can't make work nd any more invitin’ by usin’ words ROUND THE WORLD TOURS of three syllables.” , The Best Regular Services to —Ladies’ Home Journal. EGYPT, INDIA, CHINA, PHILIP- — PINES, JAPAN, AUSTRALIA, NEW t ZEALAND. Round World Trips nich me men, you know, are se Wicies Tone WinGuae” Bene born great, some achieve greatness— INSULAR @ ORIENTAL 8. W. CO. Miss. Kee Exactly! And some Pull information from just grate upon you.—Bufalo Courisr | CUNARD LINE, 24 State St.,N.Y. os His Last Lees comicbooks.com