Life, 1919-08-07 · page 28 of 44
Life — August 7, 1919 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 20th-century American prudishness about women's bathing attire. The main article mocks the scandal caused when women wore one-piece swimsuits with bare legs at Atlantic City beaches, where police intervened. The satire notes that Colonel Ghadiali (a real Hindu-born American) publicly denounced mandatory stockings for women bathers as "immoral" and "un-American," while men went bare-legged. The author argues this double standard is absurd and that Europe's more relaxed attitudes will eventually improve American customs. The bottom cartoons offer unrelated social commentary: one jokes about "free verse" poetry being as pointless as reading it; another mocks a photographer's fake "scoop" photo of the President at his desk; a third satirizes the nursing bottle as promoting greed in infants. The page reflects period anxieties about women's bodies, American morality, and changing social conventions.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
244 Equal Rights for Legs 'HE usual summer excitement is on over the disposition of some wom- en bathers to go swimming in one- piece bathing suits, and with bare legs. When they do it at places like Atlantic City the police get after them, and create disorder, and there are items about it in the papers, and some scandal. It is only a matter of time when the one-piece suits and the bare legs will win out, and be recognized as proper. Colonel Ghadiali, a Hindu-born Ameri- can, whose ideas of propriety are based on a different convention from ours, has recorded in the papers his strong dissent from the beach rules at At- lantic City. He addressed the annual meeting of the Drugless Physicians about it, insisting that to make bathing women wear stockings and let bathing men eo bare-legged was “ unmoral, un- American and inhumane.’ So it is. In Europe it isn’t done. At European bathing places legs have equal rights, regardless of sex, and exercise them copiously, and “good times are had by all,” including American tourists, as the country papers might say. We are doing a good deal to Europe in these times, and may expect Europe to do quite a bit to us. For one thing, she will improve our bathing-beach customs. Degrees (T=: He's a queer gink. He says he likes to write free '* verse. . Nep: There’s no accounting for tastes. I know fellows who claim they like to read it. THE NURSING BOTTLE IS A MENACE BECAUSE— IT INCULCATES GREED AND— win?” Wi-wHy? “1 WAS JUST WONDERING.” Confidential EWSPAPER PHOTOGRAPHER Got a great beat, chief. dent at his desk. itor: At his desk where? “In Washington.” “Sorry, my boy! Can't use it. Our readers might think it was a fake.” (breathlessly): Latest picture of the Presi- IF a woman is an hour late in returning home, and her husband is worried, she is flattered. If a man is three hours late he is angry if anyone is worried. CAUSES TEMPER AND TROUBLE comicbooks.conmual