Life, 1920-06-24 · page 26 of 41
Life — June 24, 1920 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 20th-century anxieties about educated women. The central joke, stated in the headline, is that despite earning degrees (A.B., M.A.), women graduates will ultimately become wives (MRS.). The accompanying sketches mock specific female graduate archetypes: - **Lily**: Despite academic success, her notable achievement was romance—her memory book contained a love note worth more than her degree. - **Alysse**: A teacher who returns home to her family, unmarried and seemingly destined for spinsterhood. - **Patsy**: Pride of the English Department, yet reduced to romantic prospects. - **Mathematics Club members**: Women serious about academics are depicted as comically rejecting romance. - **Canny Mary**: The "practical" graduate skilled in domestic tasks—cooking, cleaning, budgeting—positioned to finally "obtain the husband of her heart." The satire mocks both the pretense of women's higher education and the cultural expectation that marriage remains women's true destiny regardless of academic achievement. It reflects contemporary anxiety about changing gender roles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
-LIFE- The Sweet Girl Graduate She starts off with an A.B. or an M.A.; but she'll end up with an MRS, OW E, the graduating class of . . . salute you. [Extract from com- posite speech of all presidents of all graduating classes.] Our little ships, laden with their precious cargoes of friendships and learn are about to sail out on the vast, vast ocean of this wide, wit world. They are about to venture forth from the safe harbor of o dear Alma Mater—to cope bravely with adverse winds and to s straight and true... .” Oh, you tell them, Teddye. I can't bear to do it! This is Alysse, { years in the A ‘ [h y partment of Te: What did Lily get i College, returned tot out of college? Look ‘ yearning bosor in her memory book family — anc and you'll find that her i time wasn't wasted— not before, between and after class way. And, a she did get her degree, even though the mar- spected boss pl of Paterson, N. J oh, why, d ever tell Alysse of great-aunt Abby wasn’t just rig the head, poor and used to Patsy was the pride of the English Departm china? “Two dances?” says Pat. “No, child, jamais! } ation. You're seeing red, boy ; deport Smith, Lily's room eyebrow, The farewell meeting of the Vassar Mathematics Club, h of these love- Canny Mary. Thanks to her domestic science, lies majored in mathematics and was she can cook, sew, wash, scrub, interior-decorate graduated summa cum laude. Indeed, if and run a house on'a budget with which a new suit jorie connects with that six (yclept of clothes would refuse to associate, Will she be Lil Hennery”) that she is earnestly the first to obtain the husband of her heart? Will summoning, she will seriously consider she—what? With cooks where they are and what going back next fall for a post-graduate they are? Over the several defunct bodies of her course, family she will. comicbooks.com