Life — June 24, 1920 — page 27: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This is a satirical cartoon mocking antique dealers' claims about colonial American history. The image depicts a chaotic, anachronistic scene labeled "The Landing of the Pilgrims"—but populated with bizarre mechanical contraptions, futuristic devices, and nonsensical structures that clearly never existed in the 1620s. The joke targets antique dealers who allegedly misrepresent or fabricate the historical provenance of items they sell, claiming dubious connections to the Pilgrims and early America. By showing an absurdly impossible colonial scene filled with fantastical inventions, the cartoonist suggests that if we believed dealers' exaggerated claims about their wares' origins, history would look this ridiculous. The satire critiques commercial dishonesty in the antiques trade—a common target of early 20th-century humor about consumer fraud.