Life, 1927-07-14 · page 25 of 40
Life — July 14, 1927 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two distinct satirical pieces from Life magazine: **The Lawyer/Rastus cartoon** employs racist blackface stereotypes common to early 20th-century American humor. It depicts a Black man ("Rastus") in a legal proceeding about hog-stealing, with the lawyer encouraging him toward "bigger things"—which Rastus interprets as stealing beef instead. The "joke" relies entirely on racial caricature and the stereotype of Black criminality, reflecting deeply offensive attitudes of the era. **"Mrs. Pep's Diary"** satirizes wealthy women's frivolous concerns: broken earrings, expensive perfume accidents, designer dress costs hidden from husbands, and anxiety about appearing fashionable while shopping. It mocks upper-class materialism and domestic vanity through exaggerated attention to trivial matters. Both pieces reflect 1920s Life magazine's mix of social satire targeting the affluent and crude racial humor that was considered acceptable entertainment at the time.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
23 she could go to market and yet in which, when she arrived a few min utes later at the country club, she would not necessarily look as if she had been to market, and we could not but spe ate merrily as to what Chanel or Lanvin would do with such a Maud Muller on a summer's day Yet I do ¢ that woman wanted, and so, for prehend perfectly what tunatel es the dressmaker. Home carly, to stand whilst’ Virgie did ilter the length of my summer slips 1 tedious business, and IT do here with add to my conception of heaven, heretofore a spot where there is free massage and plenty of cracked ice, a place where petticoat and garment hems are automatically in’ perfect accord, June Off to the country by tor for luncl ” cards ae 23rd ith J. B.. marveling, as ever, at the beauty of the Palisades, Lawyer: 1s THs PART OF THE HOG 1 GOT YOU CLEAR OF STEALING, RASTUS? Rastus: VAssUM, BOSS; DAT’S DE BERRY ANIMULE, S\qt. Lawyer: WELL, 1 HOPE YOU WILL SET YOUR MIND ON BIGGER THINGS THAN HOG-STEALING, Rastus: 1 ALREADY IS; ONE OB DESK DAYS WE-ALL GWINE HAB SOME FINE BEEP. Mes Reps Diary Awakened too betimes by June my wrist watch, dropped one of my the neighborhood urchins rl earrings to the hard floor and 22nd hom Sam calls by an un flattering Elizabethan term, and 1 do seriously doubt if poets would see so much in happy little children at their play if their observation were confined to districts in) which the exigencies of entail permit a tene ment or two to hold out for a time beside new and spacious apartment der how the Italians on Third Avenue fling milk bottles at the cats during the night watches, thereby adding to the horror, I am frequently minded to thrust a few flatirons into the midst of their offspring who see fit to start up “Farmer in the Dell” at seven A.M. Reading in Louis Bromfield’s new novel, “A Good Woman,” I did become so engrossed that I did not buildings, and when I do } note the time, and was at such pains to be prompt for my fitting appoint- ment that I broke the fastening of overturned a bottle of costly perfume, a splendid exem- plificati f the adage that haste makes waste, in especial as I was kept. waiting > some twenty min- Y utes upon arriv- ing. My two new dotted Swiss dresses, one beige and one green, very satisfactory indeed, albeit 1 must never let my husband know how much I laid out for them, for he would either not credit me at all or take me straightway to Dr. Brill My dressmaker, telling this and that incident of the day's work, did relate how a customer had enjoined her that morning to design and make her a gown in which SUNERNEY : 1 DON'T WANT YouR MONEY h Daddy: wow mvc po you want? comicbooks.com