Life, 1927-07-28 · page 22 of 36
Life — July 28, 1927 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is not a political cartoon but rather a feature article promoting **Life magazine's charitable summer camps** for poor urban children from New York's Lower East Side slums. The article contrasts the misery of tenement life (overcrowding, heat, dangerous streets) with the wholesome benefits of two camps: one for boys in Potterville, New Jersey, and one for girls in Branchville, Connecticut. The photographs show children engaged in recreational activities—sewing, group gatherings, and outdoor games. A humorous reference appears to **Paul Whiteman**, the famous bandleader of the era, joking that even this "big, strong man" would tremble hearing the Potterville boys' band's "rival syncopation"—meaning their amateur jazz music. This is light mockery, not satire. The piece appeals to readers' charitable impulses, emphasizing how camps provide urban slum children with fresh air, nature, proper food, and care—presenting the camps as transformative, nearly paradisiacal experiences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE STUFP THAT GOOD HOUSEKERPERS GIRLS AT THE BRANCHVILLE CAMP, WHERE THEY ARE MADE OF EARN IS DEVELOPED IN THE MLY THAT BEDS AND PLENTY LITTLE OF GOOD PRESIE AIR GO SPLENDIDLY TOGETHER, Lire AST week—a serceching game of ball in a vacant lot. Cans and squalor. Heat. Towering — tene- ments. Policemen. Whistles. Flight. Swarming streets. Elevated trains. Anger. Fights. Tears. THE SLUMS! This week in a green field. a well-directed game Airy Camp build- ings. Breezes. ‘Trees. Sleeping tents. Swimming Good food. Care. Friendliness. Joy. THE CAMPS! As our old friend Shakespeare remarked, look on this picture, then on that, and find happiness in your own heart because this difference of life some poor little child. made for yu have possible Summer is here with a venges now. Each morning the rickety buildings that house the families of the Lower East) Side of New York tumble their small inhabitants into the unsanitary and dan- rous streets. There they may look after themselves, gather such knowledge as the gut- ters afford and seramb WHEN SEWING IS MADE A GAME IT ISN'T SO HARD TO LEARN TO PUT THAT PATCH ON, s Camps for Needy Children to the sweet, ¢ cen happy ¢ country for eight s! Think what Lirr’s Camps must stand for in such young minds! First’ station this of Paradise, we imagine. The Camp for boys is at Potters- ville, New Jersey, and there added to the od old rural delights of the plac the Indian and Scout lore taught by the wise counsellors. ‘The nature study, the the rules of the game, the sporting atti- tude. The Girls’ Camp at Branchville, Connecticut, is very lovely Here, tired “big sisters” side ar swimming, indeed. “little mothers,” baby drudges, and others, the —city-sick litle children of the slums, discover with bursting hearts the new joys of for and worn-out those and of the being cared the wide magi green country, Why, you never saw such a brand of happi- ness flourishes at both of Lire’s Camps! “Fun,” the children eall it, but they find something much deep- er than that. thing that lasts and is through the day as well taken gratefully back is they may. Their to the dreary tene- food is an abomination, ments when the won- and their whole life a E derful eighteen days horror of poverty and ~~~ are over. neglect. PAUL WHITEMAN IS A BIG, STRONG MAN, BUT THE BOYS KNOW Now, of course, all Think what it) must THAT He'D JUST TREMBLE WITH FEAR IP HE CouLD Hear THE — this has been said here mean, then, for one of these children to be sent RIVAL SYNCOPATION THAT THE OVER VOTTERSVILLE ‘THIS YEAR. BAND Is PUTTING to make you see some- (Cont. on page 30) comicbooks.com