Life, 1925-06-04 · page 28 of 44
Life — June 4, 1925 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This *Life* magazine page satirizes 1920s modern life through multiple pieces: **"Rockabye"** (poem): Mocks how parents delegate childcare to entertainment. The baby sleeps to jazz radio while parents pursue leisure—bridging (card games), pool, and Freudian psychology (the trendy new fad). The sarcasm targets affluent parents who provide modern conveniences (jazz, radio) instead of traditional parental attention. References to period songs ("Lady, Be Good!") ground this in Jazz Age culture. **"What More Can Be Said?"**: A quick joke equating flappers' slang ("swearing like a flapper") with truck drivers' crude language—mocking both groups' loose speech. **"Mrs. Pep's Diary"** and the illustration: The diary excerpt complains about inherited wealth, divorce alimony, and changing fashion (women once wore padding for curves; now flatness is fashionable). The illustration captioned "Dropping a Student to a Lower Class" appears to show someone literally dropped from a building—likely visual satire of academic or social hierarchies. Overall, the page critiques Jazz Age excess, changing gender roles, and modern frivolousness.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFE - Rockabye LEEP, little innocent, peacefully sleep; Angels their vigil about you will keep; Sleep to the lullaby (KAKD), “Me an’ the Boy Friend, the Boy Friend an’ Me.” Mama's gone bridging, and Dad's playing pool, s attending the Freudian school, But, Baby, the radio's turned on for you— Harry Katz’ Jazz Boys in Kalamazoo. When Mama and Daddy were babes long ago, They lacked advantages, such as you know. They had no chances to pick and to choose 'Twixt “Lady, Be Good!” and the “Hotsy Tot Blues.” Sleep, little cherubkin, happily doze, Eyes like the bluebell and lips like the rose. Daddy's a Stepper, and Mama's a Deb, And the current selection’s from Omaha, Neb. Tip Bliss. What More Can Be Said > “CHAT truck-driver certainly has an awful vocabulary, asn’t he?” es, he swears like a flapper.” THE CLASS BABY ATTENDS THE FORTIETH REUNION Wes Lops Diary May The morning post unusually heavy, but naught of 28th consequence, and why merchants should spend money on postage and stationery for advertise- ments which nine women out of ten tear in two without opening I do not see. One of the tenth women is Gusta who once tore up a notice from a trust company ¢ effect that she had inherited several thousand dollars under the impression that it was an invitation to rent a safe-deposit box....Eugenia Seabury to lunch with me, and we fell a-talking of the days when we were débutantes, and how we and the times have changed, for Lord! we used to wear strips of ruffled lace under our blouses to give the effect of ample, or at least sufficient, bosoms, whereas now the idea is exactly the opposite. We did recall, too, how 1 had inherited my great aunt's chest of silver before I reached years of discretion, and had given a fine Shefheld tea set to an itinerant servant because I could find no Sterling mark thereon. And when I did admire the two heavy bracelets of twisted silver which Genie had bought in the West Indies, she quoth, Yes, they're good-looking, but when I want to get them off I have to call in the janitor. Awake betimes, reading the journals, and mark- 29th ing another instance of a judge’s awarding a th oman fifty dollars a month for expenses whilst her suit for divorce is pending, albeit her husband's income is eighty thousand a year. How a magistrate can do such a thing with a straight face | know not. I did also come (Continued on page 34) DROPPING A STUDENT TO A LOWER CLASS comicbooks.com