Life, 1919-10-16 · page 13 of 36
Life — October 16, 1919 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This nine-panel comic strip depicts a satirical rags-to-riches narrative. A poor boy with honest barber parents aspires to wealth after seeing a carpenter's success. At eighteen, he leaves home seeking fortune. The comic follows his rise: he works hard, catches the eye of a plumber's wealthy daughter, marries her (before a massive crowd), and achieves financial success, earning "$150 a day." The satire targets early 20th-century American social mobility myths. The exaggerated narrative—poor origins, marrying into wealth, instant prosperity—mocks the "self-made man" ideology. By showing this unlikely trajectory as a crowd-pleasing fantasy rather than realistic expectation, the comic suggests such dramatic upward mobility is more fairy tale than achievable goal for ordinary working-class youth.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Born of poor, honest parents—his father was a banker—Reginald showed early signs of wishing to rise above his station. On the first day at work he saw the boss plumber’s beautiful daughter, and determined to make himself worthy of her. His humble birth was no barrier to true love. The plumber’s heiress loved him even as he loved her. “LIFE: The Rise of a Poor Young Man Nowadays Seeing a carpenter driving home from work one day, he said: “I too, father, shall some time be wealthy like that.” At the age of eighteen he sallicd forth with his poor parents’ blessings, to seek his fortune Quick to reward merit, the boss raised his wages to one hundred and fifty dol- lars a day and invited him home to dinner. He soon attracted the boss's notice. No man took longer on a job or quit more promptly when the whistle blew And in his success he did not forget his poor parents, but brought them to live with him in comfort and ease. All society attended the wedding. Regi- nald, never proud, also invited some of his relatives and former friends.