Life, 1927-05-12 · page 16 of 43
Life — May 12, 1927 — page 16: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page presents a humorous "diary" entry satirizing domestic life and consumer culture. The dated entry describes a woman receiving an unsolicited beauty treatment pitch and complaining about various domestic annoyances—a plumber's inflated bill, suppressed books from Boston authorities, and a relative's social climbing. The two accompanying illustrations show a woman's silhouette and her legs in fashionable shoes, visualizing the diary's concerns with appearance and materialism. The caption "She: Because I like nice things" suggests satirizing women's consumer desires. The lower section advertises spring fashions from Sears, using the diary's materialism as a natural segue to fashion marketing. This blends satirical social commentary with direct product promotion, typical of Life magazine's approach during this era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Life April By the first post a cleverly simulated personal pril ean ; I note from a well-known beauty specialist urging 19th me to come to her salon on a day when my face is worn and weary, forasmuch as one of her treat- ments would tone me up wonderfully, whilst several would quite transform the texture of my skin and the curve of my contour, and I was at some pains not to sit down and write her inquir- ing from what source she had gained the im- pression that my skin and contour needed transforming. Lord! the lengths to which tradespeople will go these days to advertise their wares! With U. S. postmen so scan- dalously underpaid, I do wonder that the He: Why have you run up such an woman suffragists, enormous bill with Mr. McCarthy, who were going to do the plumber? such marvelous things when they achieved the franchise, do not put through a bill making commercial cir- cularization a misdemeanor. A letter also from Aunt Caro- line asking me to send her all the books which have been suppressed by the Boston authorities, a tedious business, for now I shall have to look up the list, but if I did ever receive a commission from Aunt C. that was not tiresome—! Edgar Antry, just down from Albany, tells me it is all over town that she did order her chauffeur to remove the small red spots from her automobile tyres because they did look untidy. Sometimes I do wish that I might read in the journals that she has cloped with a youth of twenty-odd years, for then I should no longer have to buy little bead flowers by ear or sit with old ladies on Lenox Hill simply be- cause Sam fancies him- self to be her favorite nephew. For albeit the poor wretch is by no means acquisitive or mercenary, I am sure he is more tolerant of her vagaries because she is rich than he ever would be if she were (Cont. on page 32) A Fascinating Geoup of Smart A, pring Styles and Accessories, com the Ateliecs of Gears, She: Because I like nice things. Pooebuch et Cie, comicbooks.com