Life, 1923-07-26 · page 38 of 42
Life — July 26, 1923 — page 38: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a self-promotional advertisement that mocks Life magazine's own credibility. The satire is directed at the magazine itself and urban sophistication generally. The joke: Life, edited in a Manhattan skyscraper with modern conveniences, claims to be publishing an authoritative "Farmers' Number" despite having done minimal actual agricultural research—just two days studying a seed catalog and three hours observing farmland through a telescope from Long Island. The absurdity is compounded by the suggestion that their office's view of Central Park and distant vacant land somehow qualifies them as farming experts. The cartoon satirizes the disconnect between urban, white-collar magazine culture and actual farming life. It's self-aware humor: Life is openly admitting its own detachment from rural America while still confidently producing content about it. This reflects early-20th-century tensions between urban and rural American perspectives, and the metropolitan magazine's somewhat patronizing relationship with agricultural readers. The ad promotes a ten-week trial subscription for one dollar.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Where Life’s Farmers’ Number will be edited LIFE’S Farmers’ Number ' After weeks of intensive preparation con- sisting of two days’ study of a seed catalogue, and three hours’ telescopic observation of farming country surrounding New York, Lire is ready to issue a FARMERS’ NUMBER. It will be issued on AUGUST 16TH. Lire is edited in one of the nicest skyscrap- ers in New York, with electric elevators, steam heat, running water, plenty of light and air, and other conveniences and advantages which make it especially suitable for the publication of an agricultural number. On the west we have a wonderful view of Central Park and on the east we can see, with the aid of a telescope, a lot of vacant ground about fifty miles out on Long Island which either is farm land or ought to be. Doesn't this convince you that you ought to have Lire’s great Farmers’ Number? If so, why not get it FREE, along with two and a third other numbers, by sending a dollar for a ten weeks’ trial subscription—the usual cost of ten numbers being a dollar-fifty? Cultivate that coupon in the corner. spite of your advertisement, I'll try LIFE ten . weeks for $1. (Cana- ‘ dian, $1.20; Foreign, $1.40.) Gai) LIFE, 598 Madison Avenue, New York One Year, $5.00 (Canadian, $5.80; Foreign, $6.60) comicbooks.com