Life, 1917-07-26 · page 23 of 40
Life — July 26, 1917 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top illustration, "The Willowbys' Ward," satirizes amateur vacation photography—a relatable social phenomenon of the era. It mocks the ubiquitous problem of squinting subjects and poorly-composed snapshots that travelers inflicted on friends after summer trips. The numbered captions humorously catalog the predictable failures: obscured scenery, people squinting from sun glare, and compositional errors like cutting off heads. Below, "Something Jane Didn't Notice" references Jane Addams, the famous progressive reformer, sardonically suggesting her focus on German-American concerns between 1914-1917 caused her to overlook American political developments—likely alluding to Mayor William Hale Thompson's controversial leadership in Chicago during the war period. "The Wrist-Watch Again" humorously critiques the new-fangled wrist-watch as impractical compared to pocket watches, despite its supposed convenience. The joke hinges on the irony that accessing a wrist-watch still requires unbuttoning one's coat and searching—making it no more efficient than the old method.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
143 THE WILLOWBYS' WARD. 8 €-gosteR UNCOLY rh€ ONLY THIS AFTERNOON THE PROFESSOR FINISHED HIS TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF HARMONY Snapshots You Have to Look at After the Summer Vacation | The ocean, partially obscured by * Cousin Mary squinting at the camera. 2. A beautiful bit of forest, barely visible on all sides by Brother John, whose face is all squizzled up from looking toward the sun. 3. Gertrude and Charles laughing at each other. Charles is squinting, and Gertrude, who was speaking to Charles when the picture was snapped, is squinting, and has her mouth wide open. 4. Mother and father squinting and laughing. s. Mother and father just squinting. 6. The dog, who snatched at an agile flea just as the shutter started to move, but who was probably squinting before he ruined the picture. 7. A family group, showing all eight members of the family, but only seven squints. The person who snapped it didn’t get Martha’s head in the picture. 8. The bathing group, showing five persons, three with their mouths open, d all five squinting. 9-50. Forty-two other photographs, cach one containing an average of one and one-half open mouths and two and. one-quarter squints. Something Jane Didn't Notice The feeling of German-born Amer- ican citizens should have been con- sidered before war was declared. Jane Addams, T was considered pretty steadily from August 4, 1914, to April 2, 1917. When American attention began at any time to wander from it, something always blew up and called it back. The fact that she has been living in the city of which William Hale Thomp- son is mayor may have caused Miss Addams to miss some particulars of what has been going on. The Wrist-Watch Again LD CONVERT: I can’t under- stand why the wrist-watch is such an object of levity. I'm sure it is a great convenience. New Convert: Yes. With the old kind, in order to find out the time, I had to unbutton my coat and fish around in my waistcoat pocket for my watch. Now all I have to do is un- button my coat, fish around in my waistcoat pocket, discover that my watch isn’t there and then pull up my sleeve and look at my wrist-watch,