Life, 1925-07-02 · page 15 of 47
Life — July 2, 1925 — page 15: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This comic satirizes the gap between stated economic principles and actual behavior. A lecturer promotes thrift by highlighting wasteful spending: millions wasted on jewelry, women spending $75 on hats worth 75¢, and expensive furs and Paris gowns. The "impressionable young lady" appears to absorb these lessons—until the final panel reveals her driving away in an expensive, flower-decorated automobile, exclaiming "Thank heavens!" The joke: despite hearing arguments against luxury consumption, she immediately indulges in precisely the kind of extravagant purchase the lecture condemned. The cartoon mocks both the ineffectiveness of moralizing about consumerism and the young woman's inability (or unwillingness) to resist temptation, reflecting 1920s anxieties about modern consumer culture and women's spending habits.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
TO_PROMOTE ECONOMY, |) WE MUST ELIMINATE THE WASTE IN WOMEN'S CLOTHES ---- As : AND HATS — A WOMAN WILL SPEND $7522 FORA HAT THAT IS WORTH 75 $---7 SATIN SLIPPERS MAND SHEER SILK. \\ HOSE ARE SENDING THIS )} NATION INTO BANKRUPTCY.-) we QUREN YYTOUT ¥ RUSSIAN FURS Fan AND PARIS: GOWNS TAKE JEWELRY, FOR INSTANCE: MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ARE WASTED ANNUALLY ON COSTLY BAUPLEJ*----- COMMAND OUTRAGEO! PRICES AND SHOULD BE PROHIBITED = STATION W FOR NOW SIGNING OfF— GOOD NIGHT,