Life, 1920-06-24 · page 28 of 41
Life — June 24, 1920 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
The top engraving satirizes Puritan New England settlers as theatrical performers staging an "open-air performance" for audiences. The caption's date appears garbled (likely meant to reference early colonial America), suggesting Life is mocking Puritan culture as performative hypocrisy. Below, three humorous pieces critique American life circa the magazine's publication: **"The Sum of Knowledge"** ridicules useless school curricula—teaching trivial facts (breaths drawn by Betsy Ross) and impractical crafts instead of genuine education. **"Prolonged"** jokes about Prohibition's unintended consequence: people now spend *more* time seeking alcohol illegally, making them come home *later*, not earlier as temperance advocates promised. **"Little Boy"** presents generational irony: a child questions whether his father was truly the angel he claims to have been in youth—suggesting adult hypocrisy about moral decline. All three pieces mock American institutions (education, Prohibition, family morality) as failures or pretense.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE FOLLIES OF 162 AN OPEN-AIR PERFORMANCE, PLAYING TO LARGE AUDIENCES. UNDEK THE MANAGEMENT OF THE achieve PURITAN FATHERS of grea oneta The Sum of Knowledge “] HAVE two cases over in my HAW: Goin’ to wear overalls? Me house. Burtt: Nope, I'm goin’ to wait New E Scotch?” — sakes ‘ad. alineh @& baling New Ei Scotch a few weeks and launch a bathing- spent. suit movement. je . a OW to make a tomato grow in a tin can ; Pye The ability to emulate the frog and the cricket } f : oz: . though in a movement known as the Folk Dance. i 2 f z those i at diame Al friend of Lave writes: This year my son has acquired in school the following information— The exact number of breaths drawn by Betsy Ross while she was sewing the first American flag. “Number work” up to but not including addi- ton, The vocalization of melodies concerning birdies, beasties and fishes. The power to construct a flatiron-holder and a boot-tree with the aid of nineteen expensive tools. English composition of informal notes addressed to the owners of braids and pinafores. A hatred of the post-mortem grammar-dissec- tion of the English classics. The smooth, ready and rapid use of such col- loquialisms as, “He ain't got none,” “Him an’ me,” “ Uh-huh” and “ Ayuh.” A genius for analyzing movie plots at the break- fast table. Prolonged HE: I thought that when Prohibition came in you would be home early, but now you come home later than ever. He: Well, you see, old dear, it takes so much longer now to get what one wants. Little Boy: BETWEEN YOU AN’ ME, GRAN’MA, WAS DAD REALLY SUCH AN ANGEL WHEN HE WAS MY AGE AS HE TRIES TO MAKE OUT? comicbooks.com