Life, 1924-01-31 · page 12 of 36
Life — January 31, 1924 — page 12: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This sketch satirizes early 1920s fashion and gender politics. It depicts a man in a coat and hat encountering a woman pulling a small cart/trailer, with a dog nearby. The caption reads: "My friend, wouldn't it be easier if you turned that around and pushed it?" / "Naw! Gus' sight's outa mind. I'm tryin' t'forget th' thing." The joke targets the era's "trailer" fashion trend—likely women's trailing skirts or garments that dragged behind them. The cartoon mocks both the impracticality of the style and gender dynamics: the man suggests the woman reconfigure her burden, but she ironically prefers to ignore it rather than acknowledge her own cumbersome fashion choice. The humor reflects contemporary anxiety about women's evolving roles and fashion independence.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE TRAILER “MY FRIEND, WOULDN'T IT HE EASIER TF YOU TURNED THAT AROUND AND pushed 17 “NAW TA SIGHT'S OUTA MIND. UM TRYIN’ 1! PERGIT TH’ THING.” All a-twitter over the arrival on the first January Awake betimes, and read a chapter in Prov: Jarmary gost of a small jeweler’s box from Paris SSth | cfbs. which I decm the highest wisdom, and 24th find a ring with the set! gone. So has C. Dodds evened tell you in the same breath that a rolling stone gathers no and greatly cast down upon oper it to alone of its.kind, since latter-day sages will P v y up for the empty pinch bottle I sent him at Christmas, and moss nor a setting hen fat. My husband, poor wretch, dis- now [ must use my wits to do him down handsomely coursing with me on this and that, did confide to me that Lord! methinks this foolery will go on all our lives, yet he had recently marked the first sign ze in himself, and it is one of the things which make them worth liv when I inquired its nature, he quoth, Well, bridge players To the shops with Marge Boothby to look at raiment for ne er protest when I try to sneak a look at the last the South, astonished at the new sports coats’ similarity to trick....Our Aunt Caroline to luncheon with me, tedious, horse blankets, but Marge bought ertheless, saying . over inconsequentialities, such as the scanty apparel that it were better to appear on th Im Beach links in worn by our young women. Lord! I cannot be stirred much trailing chiffon than in 1923 tweeds. Which reminds me on that issue, when I ponder the ado made in my own youth reversely of the social climber who went into a small con over eyelet embroidery blouses, It amuses me also to recall ty in the exact state of dowdiness to be the high-boned collars attached to those garments, so painful t by the leading families. I did pur at times that the most light-minded female could not but se sht, however, having outdone myself in extrava mark their moral significance, nor did the calluses vanish nce of lite. But it comforts me to reflect that I should entirely from my neck until several months after they Jost have been much more profligate in Italy, for instance, where vogue. But I said naught of this to Aunt Caroline, who put the currency resembl ubbath School merits so much morc me through the customary inquisition as to my doings and than money that I fling it riotously about among the natives expenditures, nor did I dwell upon the latter, and so to bed, with no compunction soever exhausted, immediately after dinner, Baird Leonard. comicbooks.com