Life — September 16, 1926 — page 24: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page presents two satirical sketches comparing Sunday life in 1850 versus 1926, titled "Sic Transit Gloria Sunday" (Latin: "Thus passes the glory of Sunday"). The **1850 image** shows a genteel, orderly street scene with well-dressed Victorian figures, suggesting a respectable, leisured Sunday atmosphere. The **1926 image** depicts a crowded, chaotic urban street teeming with working-class pedestrians, suggesting commercialization and loss of Sunday's traditional reverence. The satire critiques how modernization and commercialization have transformed Sunday from a day of refined leisure and religious observance into a busy, ordinary marketplace day. The contrast implies nostalgia for earlier propriety while satirizing contemporary urban disorder and the decline of Sunday as a sacred day of rest.