Life, 1925-04-16 · page 22 of 36
Life — April 16, 1925 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes child labor in early 20th-century American factories. The left cartoon depicts children performing dangerous industrial work—operating machinery, riding bicycles as messengers—with dark humor in accompanying verses ("Rain" describes dust raining on machinery and children alike; "Factory Pain" shows a injured child dismissed by an uncaring foreman). The satire's central point: children imagine adulthood as escape from labor, yet foreign children are urged to be grateful they aren't American factory workers—inverting the typical assumption that American childhood is privileged. The Paul Revere section mocks modern advertising's pervasiveness: if Revere rode today, his midnight warning would be drowned out by perfumed calendar advertisements clogging the mail, rendering his historic ride unnoticed. This ridicules how commercial excess undermines civic attention. Together, these pieces critique industrial exploitation and advertising's invasive absurdity in contemporary American life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
A Child-Labor Garden of Verses Looking Forward WH EN I am grown to man's estate, I shall be very proud and great And I'll be through with work and noise And get a rest and play with toys. Rain The dust is raining all around On the machinery ; It rains on all the fan-belts here And on my friends and me. The Land of Factory Pain When I was sick and my nose bled, I had a plank beneath my head; The foreman came there where I fell, And all he said was: “What the hell!” Tes sy 1. wis Howe Foreign Children Little Indian, Sioux or Crow, g | ‘al Little frosty Eskimo, Naas Ys , Little Turk or Japanee, a iN | C b> Oh! be glad you aren't me! By:JiKs “AT least,” remarked Paul Revere, as he dismounted, “when they publish the Revolutionary Number of Lire, they can’t say I rode an electric horse.” DrCartisle 23 IF PAUL REVERE RODE TO-DAY WHY THE CITIZENS OF CONCORD AND LEXINGTON OVERSLEPT Ns Reps Diary April Enraged beyond words by the arrival on the 9th morning post of an advertisement containing a perfumed calendar card which so scented up the house that we were forced to burn three disinfectant candles before we could rid ourselves of it, and even now, I do fancy that I smell the terrible odor which the misguided parfumeur was at such pains to promote. The same post did return an Easter card which we had sent to Murray Ellsworth, who is prospecting in Texas, with the comment on the envelope, “No Esq found here.” Annie Skane to luncheon with me, being in town without husband or chil- dren for the first time in her life, and all a-twitter over the program which she has mapped out. A. confided that she did not even tell her rich and respectable aunt of her (Continued on page 27) comicbooks.com