Life, 1924-08-21 · page 13 of 36
Life — August 21, 1924 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This cartoon satirizes class consciousness and workplace hierarchy in early 20th-century America. The sketch shows an elevator operator speaking to a passenger, demanding to know when the passenger will leave so he can take a lunch break—specifically requesting to "step off for a bite of lunch" at the twenty-eighth floor. The humor derives from the operator's assertive demand for his own needs, which violates the expected deference of service workers toward passengers of apparently higher social standing. The cartoon mocks both rigid class distinctions and workers' growing willingness to assert their rights, presenting this as an amusing breach of proper social etiquette rather than legitimate labor concern.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Concessions to Human Fallibility RASERS Divorce Courts Block Signals Memorandum Pads Alarm Clocks Investigating Committees Follow-up Letters Adding Machines Private Secretaries Cosmetics Emergency Brakes Private Detectives The Dead-Letter Office Traffic Signals The Eighteenth Amendment Cc. aM. M. Journalistic Portraits he American Farmer as You Picture Him After Reading the Metropolitan Papers. J_JE got enough for his old corn on the financial pages to * switch from a Ford to a Lincoln. When he cashes in 1 his new crop in the market forecasts he will have to pack © money in his silo while the bank is enlarging its vault. n the editorials he wonders how he could ever have ned that the wheat pit might be manipulated against i He smiles as he ships the ten-dollar hog in the article y the expert. He is the happy husbandman. It is a pretty picture. If it were only a trne one! E } MAD STATIC ON YOUR NEW RADIO?” McC. H. 4 WELL, HAROLD HAS HAD LOS ANGELES AND SURE HE COULD GI STATIC IF HE WANTED TO. On Being Patronized THE reason why Joseph didn’t patronize his brethren was that he was really superior to them. Sad as it may seem, those who patronize us are not always like Joseph Humility, as a rule, is practiced only by superior people Nothing is more edifying than to sce an inferior person patronizing another inferior person, Nothing, except the spectacle of an inferior person patronizing a superior one It is possible, however, to be patronized either by your equals or by your superiors, There are always Englishmen We, on our part, patronize the Mexicans. We patroniz« the South Americans. The nicer we are to them the less we can avoid patronizing them. New York patronizes the Middle West. Boston patro nizes New York. And everybody patronizes New Jersey. The intellectuals patronize the people who support them. Bank presidents patronize their borrowers. Ladies patronize other ladies. Children patronize their parents. One generation patronizes another. We are now patronizing the mid-Victorian period. Later on, another mid-Victorian period will patronize this one Thomas L.. Masson IN THE ELEVATOR Small Voice: WkY, LET ME KNOW WHEN YOU GrT To THE “TS he TWENTY-EIGHTH FLOOR. I WANT TO STEP OFF FOR A BITE “Is he fat! He has ceased to have a waist-line. It's OF LUNCH, a circumference.” comicbooks.com