Life, 1920-10-21 · page 27 of 44
Life — October 21, 1920 — page 27: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **two distinct satirical pieces**: ## Top Section: "Housing Suggestions" A humorous response to post-WWI housing shortage. The text proposes converting "waste spaces" in cities into apartments, then ridicules the suggestion by listing absurd "waste spaces": novelty stores, window displays of men repeatedly removing/hanging trousers, brownstone tenements, millionaires' marble homes with single dogs, and closing-sale storefronts. The satire mocks both the housing crisis and the impracticality of proposed solutions. ## Bottom Section: Two Cartoons **"Local Gossip"**: A rural anecdote where banker P.K. Thrasher observes farmer Fred Wallace planting near his beehives. Fred jokes he's "scratching" the ground to prevent bees from ground itch—obvious nonsense that fools the earnest banker. **Main Cartoon**: Depicts a husband complaining his wife spends all her time at "the club" while he sits surrounded by raucous socialites. The caption sardonically notes making home attractive requires "special talent" when wives neglect domestic life for social clubs—social criticism of 1920s leisure culture and changing gender roles.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Housing Suggestions N the present shortage of hous- ing accommodations, the vari- ous committees appointed to solve the problem are recommending the utilization of waste space in erection of “waste our cities for the apartment - houses. As we would designate sites given over to the following Postcard and novelty stores with mechanical-piano attachments. Window men displays in) which stand, hour in and taking off their trousers and hanging them young hour out, repeatedly up on patent stretchers. Brownstone-front dwellings in which, as one hall, there is an odor of New Eng- enters the front land boiled dinner. Marble residences of five floors housing one millionairess and one Pomeranian each. One-storey blocks of stores, in which removal sales are constant- ly in progress J. P. Morgan's back garden nwich “studios.” Shooting galleries “Olde Englysshe” — tearooms, “DON'T BLAME YOURSELF, LOCAL GossIP Fred Wallace wuz a-doin’ some fall plantin’ down ulong that piece of his side of the road where he's gut his beehives, when P. K. Thrasher come by. Prob'ly he wanted to be neighborlylike, though he owns. the Fust National Bank of Rock Hill, and not knowin’ Fred wuz a joker, he stopped and passed the time o” day watchin’ a-hoein’ a spell, Then he ast him, “ What he you tryin’ to do, Mr. Wallace—show them bees sample of real ind ¥ No, ‘tain't tha ‘ount o° the hives. They ground itch terribul.” “Tm scratchin’ more make this passel i I | “MY WIFE SPENDS MOST OF HER TIME AT THE CLUB.” IN THESE DAYS IT REQUIRES A HOME ATTRACTIVE.” 727 serving dainty foods on doilies at , crowded tab! Theatres containing “naughty” farces, Erstwhile saloons Broad and Wall Streets. Attention, Everybody! THE schools are now open once more. Some of the big-city children have gone back to their desks, where they can he f sure of getting an occasional w distributed through the kindness of benevolent tion. Those of the haven't gone into other occ tions in order to keep body and boards of educa- teachers who soul alive, are now pointing out the various parts of speech and that two and twe almost make three And the parents are delighted fo be wholly responsible for the moral, spiritual and) mental welfare of one's children, even during the summer months, is al- most too much to ask ALK is cheap, but not when money does it IAL TALENT IN ANY MAN TO MAKE comicbooks.com