Life, 1926-08-19 · page 13 of 37
Life — August 19, 1926 — page 13: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This illustration satirizes upper-class women's behavior in the 1890s. The caption explains that young women of that era underwent an "art stage" (pretending to be cultured), but instead of developing refined taste, they burdened their households with tasteless decorative clutter—cigar-band ashtrays, hand-painted pins, Gibson Girl drawings, and burnt-leather pillows. The cartoon depicts women displaying these gaudy items to each other in an ornate parlor, treating mass-produced "art" as sophisticated. The satire targets both the women's pretensions to culture and the commercial exploitation of that pretension. It mocks 1890s consumer culture and the gap between aspiring to refinement and actual aesthetic judgment.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EVERY YOUNG GIRL IN THE NINETIES WENT THROUGH THE MEASLES AND WHOOPING COUGIL. OF CIGAR-BAND AS ROLLING PINS, COPIES OF “TRAYS, BERIBBONED GIBSON DRAWINGS The Gay Nineties ART STAGE, JUST AS SHE WENT TIIROUGIL BUT INSTEAD OP LEAVING HER WITIL IMPAIRED EYESIGHT OR FALLID HMR, THE MALADY LEFT THE HOUSEHOLD HOPELESSLY BURDENED WITIL A If HAND-PAINTED PIN CUSIIIOD WERE THE ARTY DAYS. AND ELABORATE BURNT- GILDED FEATHER PILLOWS, O11, THOSE The Letters of a Modern Father M Y Dear Sox: I have your wire saying you would be in town a half-hour Satur- day on your way from camp to col- lege, and I am getting this off right away, hoping to catch you in time to ask you to arrange your plans if possible to let me have forty-five min- utes, I have not seen you since you were thirteen years old; and while I do not want to be queer and seem to be running this parenthood business out, I should like very much to really see what you are like at cight Your mother wrote to me from noa last week that when she saw you the summer you were sixteen you looked very much like her side of the house. However, I hope you will not get it into your head that this would make any difference in my affection for you. We will need about thirty minutes at the bank to fix you up for the year and then we can have a whole quarter of an hour in my club, What do you say? Remember the Christ- mas you spent with me when you were ten? Your affectionate Fatuer. McCready Huston, A Dull Prospect E: Will you marry me? Sue: If you can’t think of anything more exciting. comicbooks.com