Life, 1926-02-11 · page 10 of 40
Life — February 11, 1926 — page 10: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page satirizes early 20th-century American workplace dynamics. The main cartoon "A Representative Group" depicts a woman visiting an employment office, where a manager rejects her stenography credentials—dismissing her experience as "unsatisfactory" despite winning a magazine prize. The humor targets hiring discrimination: the text notes she's competing against "alert young office boys" and references "a newspaper man" and "a surgeon," suggesting qualified women faced systematic rejection regardless of qualifications. The "Historic Working Girls" section uses historical comparison (Portia, a legal figure from Shakespeare) to mock women's limited professional advancement—the caption about "paddocks the spear-carrier in Venice" appears to mock trivial female roles. The page overall critiques gender-based employment barriers and the casual dismissal of women's professional credentials in this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
NO BEGINNER Employment Manager: 1's sorry, Miss CHARLESTON, BUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AS A STENOGRAPHER 1S UNSATISFACTORY. * “DON'T KID YOURSELF! IT WON FIRST PRIZE IN LAST MONTH'S True Experience MAGA- ZINE.” A Representative Group Y the Americans are a busy And there is a handful of snappy I don’t know, but it seems to be a girl | people, Mortimer brokers. Yes, behind those alert young in a window, demonstrating fountain | See that fine group of men right — office boys pens. Yes, let's go over. across the street And there is a newspaper man, with James A. Sanaker. See the er, known in all money — the wide-awake camera hound by his marts. Sce the stalwart medical stu- side. No, that good-looking six-footer dents, next to him. is a surgeon! Big practice; two assist- Week-Days and Sundays y Fine ch xd-looking, those three ants! “\YJHAT do you wish for break- ast, dear?” she called up sweetly to her husband, the head train an- hustling salesmen ! What are they looking at? Really, nouncer. Historic Working Girls No. I] “YA-A - CaHANT-e-L0-O - OPE. CAHOR-R-N FLEKS and errr-I EM, TWO WEGGS. turnedoverand wellD0-O-O TO-O-OAST jamand bIAAAck CO F, and bIAAAck COFFE ‘or the 364th time that year she turned, with a sad, sweet smile, placed - two crullers and a tumbler of milk on the table, and went in to bathe the baby. Harold S. Stev ns. Fairy Tale NCE a little boy said to his sister, “You monkey with the new radio now and T'll study my lessons.” Portia, the new District Attorney, padlocks the speak-casies in Venice, comicbooks.com