Life, 1925-05-21 · page 17 of 40
Life — May 21, 1925 — page 17: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous comic strip mocking the early radio craze and its domestic disruptions. The narrative shows a wife repeatedly asking her husband to bring home various radio models and accessories, each more elaborate and expensive than the last. The satire targets: - **Radio obsession**: The husband's escalating enthusiasm for radio technology - **Domestic conflict**: The wife's frustration with his fixation and the noise/clutter radios create - **Consumer excess**: Each panel shows bigger, more elaborate radio installations - **Social disruption**: The final panels show radios interfering with neighbors and children's activities The joke is that this new technology, meant to entertain, instead becomes a source of family tension and neighborhood annoyance—a common 1920s complaint about the radio's sudden ubiquity in American homes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
SHE HAS ASKED YOU SO PRETTILY FOR THE TWENTIETIE THEN SME TELLS YOU THAT'S ONLY THE NAVY WHEN YOU TIME TO BRING HOME A RADIO—SUPER-IODINE OR SOME- CAN HEAR LAFOLLETTE LEADING THE PIVE-AND-TEN-CENT THING—THAT YOU HAVE TO GIVE IN, ALTHOUGH You STORE BAND AT THE BETHLENEM STEEL WORKS WHILE LOATHE THE BLAME THINGS. CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT 1S RECITING A RECIPE FOR EGG THEN EVEN SHE BEGINS TO SHARE YOUR UTTER LACK OF ENTHUSIASM FOR STATIC AND WONDERS WITH YOU WHETHER ’TWERE NOBLER IN THE MIND TO SUFFER SYRA- CUSE AND NEWARK OR TO TUNE IN ON A SEA OF JAZZ PROM HAVANA, THE CASE MADE A SNAPPY WINDOW BOX, BUT THE LOUD IT LIMB FROM LIMB BY YELLING, “AH, SHUT UP!" To THE SPEAKER ITSELF WAS ASTONISHINGLY USEFUL FOR THE BISHOP OF ORANGE. NEIGNBOR’S SON IN IIS LIGHTER MOMENTS AS THE MONARCH OF THE JUNGLE. YOU AND YOUR RADIO comicbooks.com