Life, 1927-08-04 · page 24 of 40
Life — August 4, 1927 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a charitable appeal, not satire. The article advocates for Life's summer camps serving poor children from New York City tenements during a brutal heat wave. The narrative describes witnessing a malnourished boy cooling himself in a public library fountain—an image of desperation. The author asks readers: if you'd want to rescue *this* child, why not support the camps that help many like him? The photograph shows children at the Branchville girls' camp during a flag ceremony, illustrating the "peace, plenty and protection" the camps provide. The appeal requests $20 donations (approximately $650 today) to fund an 18-day camp stay. Two camps are mentioned: one for boys in Pottersville, New Jersey, and one for girls in Branchville, Connecticut. This reflects Progressive Era concern for urban poverty and child welfare—positioning summer camps as moral remedy for tenement life.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Life LIFE’S Camps for Needy Children hot! you been it? Here in town it has been beyond ll adjectives: As phalt streets like melting lava the baked build ings throwing off ] [ave Ns, it’s How have standing radiations the fierce of heat and vellow—the halting the sweltering to Tet an ambulance through to pick up a heat- tir murky wild-eyed, trathic on its ow ay prostrate! Even you in the country haven't had it trees hang casy, Houses. simmering breathless—grass and gardens parched. It has been a bad But—think what children of the spell for all of us. it has meant for the tenements ! On Saturday, while passing the Avenue, we black-haired, Public Library on Fifth saw a serap of a boy white-faced, bony. a scarecrow as to clothes—-seat himself j the orating the Library facade yfully ins the basin of one of ountains dee- What if the loitering pedestrians roared with laughter! What if the heavy, ill- fitting trousers made a leaden bath What if the law did, al most immediately, descend upon him ing suit! PEACE, HEARTS OF PLENTY THE AND LITTLE GIRLS OF ¢ with dire results and hold him up, world to sec! least he dreamed of the luxury of splashing dripping, for all the For a moment at had in cool streams, of the right to play of the holiday spirit! If any of 3 little waif—you wonld have “Don't shake him dike that! Let me take send him where he really ean have had seen him—poor said: Don't frighten him! him and his bath in the open air, his right to childhood. — Let me one of Live's Camps Children. T ean. spare plenty for humanity ! You loved for doing this, wouldn't send him to for Needy a little scrap of out of my this ourself And vou would have a right to love your would have self for such a deed Now pen to pass hy just because you didn’t bap- it the exact moment to reseuc this particular child) from the red-hot city ist reason why you can't rescue his brother and. sister. The family of New York City’s poor is numerous almost to unbelief. We the youngsters who have just man- of you to send some of aged stagger through this last hot wave to Lire’s Camps. The Camp for Boys is at Pottersville, N. J, and the Camp for Girls is at Braneh- PROTECTION | OLD GLORY WILL R BRANCHVILLE ATTENTION FOR “corons” EACH sUNDOW MEAN THESE CAMP WHO STAND AT THRILLED ville, Conn, ‘Twenty dollars approximately, pays for a holiday of vighteen days for one ehild at either of these Camps Will you help us do something for the slums? Will you Lake one forlorn little serap these wilted youngsters « out of the Library Fountain and send him to Pottersville, where he can switnmin le of the Or, if you faney a girl her to Branchville splash in the big bro yormin, send utdoor Or but some- where there is a lovely new pool. ‘Twenty dollars, please! more ny part of it thing, in the name of merey! (Continued on page FOREVER IN THE comicbooks.com