Life — August 12, 1915 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 276 **"The Original Jitney"** cartoon depicts a massive dinosaur carrying multiple tiny human passengers on its back, satirizing the newly popular "jitney" — cheap, informal shared-ride vehicles that were disrupting established transportation monopolies in the early 1900s. **The "Society Item"** text below mocks wealthy women whose lives are consumed by social institutions: doctors, nurses, teachers, transportation companies, newspapers, schools, church, and courts all profit from or regulate her existence. The accompanying bedroom photograph illustrates a woman in bed, captioned with dialogue about taking chances rather than saying prayers—suggesting social satire about idle, privileged women. Both pieces critique early 20th-century American society: commercialized transportation and the frivolous lives of the wealthy elite.