Life, 1926-04-22 · page 25 of 40
Life — April 22, 1926 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a humor column about commuter games played on trains. The main article describes "Train Games"—pastimes passengers invented to entertain themselves during boring commutes. The cartoons illustrate fashion advice for commuters. Sketches show women in 1920s-style clothing labeled as appropriate "informal morning wear" and men's accessories like "English bags" for commuting. One cartoon labeled "Efficiency Egbert" mocks a businessman taking up foreign languages during his commute—satirizing the self-improvement culture of the era and the notion that busy professionals could optimize every moment. The "Train Games" themselves are leg-stretching exercises disguised as games played between car seats, with names like "Scrambled Legs." The satire gently pokes fun at commuters' creativity in fighting boredom and the somewhat absurd lengths they'd go to entertain themselves during tedious rail journeys—a relatable problem for early 20th-century urban workers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
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