Life — June 3, 1926 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Life" Commencement Number, June 2, 1925 This is a **Life magazine cover** featuring an illustration titled "The Sweet Girl Graduate." The cover depicts a young woman in graduation attire (mortarboard and gown) in an exuberant celebratory pose—leg kicked up, holding a diploma and what appears to be a celebratory torch or torch-like object. The satire likely plays on contemporary anxieties about the "modern woman" of the 1920s Jazz Age. The flapper-style energy and uninhibited pose—particularly the raised leg—would have struck conservative readers as representing the "new woman" rejecting traditional feminine propriety. The commencement theme allowed Life to satirize changing gender roles and women's increased educational and social freedoms during this era. The price of 15 cents reflects the 1920s date.