Life, 1925-03-26 · page 11 of 37
Life — March 26, 1925 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains humorous sketches and brief satirical pieces typical of early 20th-century Life magazine. The top cartoon shows a clerk selling powder makeup, sarcastically suggesting it makes all faces look identical—mocking the standardization of beauty through cosmetics. "Automatic Vegetable Garden" depicts someone in bed while seeds are processed through pipes, satirizing modern automation and labor-saving devices becoming absurdly impractical. The text pieces include "The Perfect Beauty" (mocking a woman who neglects her appearance while claiming indifference), "Literally Speaking" (a mild pun about touching someone with a ten-foot pole), and a joke about trees in Sunday papers. Overall, this represents Life's satirical commentary on contemporary consumer culture, changing beauty standards, mechanization, and domestic life—using exaggeration and absurdity to critique modern American society.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Clerk: THIS TINT OF POWDER MATCHES YOUR FACE Lady: THEN 1 DON’T WANT IT. WHAT'S THE USE OF POWDER IF IT’S THE SAME COLOK AS MY FACE? For All Peoples “OLLOWING the proposition to fifty-two-story “Cathedral” in Pittsburgh, comes the aspiration of the Smoky build a Learni est towerin| City in the form of a seventeen-story jail—"Cathedral” of Crime, let us say Next we shall hear of a fiity-seven-story Cathedral” of Pickles with the slogan YES, WHAT? in electric lights, “We Pickle Our Pickles in the Sky.” “Cathedrals” are hecoming rather too common, We had always supposed a Cathedral was the chief church of the diocese containing a cathedra, or bishop's throne; but, how- ever that may be, let us have more “Cathedrals.” Let us Drug Store “Cathedral” on every corner. have a AUTOMATIC VEGETABLE GARDEN HOLES ALREADY BORED. SEEDS ARE INSTANTLY RETURNED THROUGH PIPES RECEPTACLE FOR REPLANTING NEXT SEASON. PERFECTLY, MADAM. The Perfect Beauty FHEN she cut her hair she never said it was to save time in the morning. While it was short she never justified it by saying it was so comfy. When she decided to let it grow she was never heard to remark that bobs were getting rather common. that it is light and wavy it is or says she can't do a thing with it. She is the perfect shingled Now ong again she never tells how beauty. If you ever meet her grab her Literally Speaking “] WOULDN'T touch him with a ten- foot po! “Why: not? him?” “Oh, nothing; only it would look so What's the matter with silly.” used to make Sunday paper radio magazines were left alone—but talking about the millennium IF all the t won't bring it any nearer comicbooks.com