Life, 1927-08-25 · page 26 of 36
Life — August 25, 1927 — page 26: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a charitable appeal—not satire—promoting Life magazine's real summer camps for poor urban children. The text contrasts two childhoods: privileged children like "Nancy" and "Dick" enjoying safe, nurturing home environments versus tenement children exposed to disease, crime, and neglect in New York's slums. The accompanying photograph shows the flag-raising ceremony at the boys' camp, depicting organized, patriotic structure meant to reassure donors that their contributions provide moral uplift alongside recreation. The "broadcast" framing mimics popular radio programs of the era, using informal, folksy language ("listen, family") to make charitable giving feel accessible and urgent. The appeal argues these camps offer transformative escape—eighteen days in the country providing physical and spiritual renewal for children otherwise condemned to urban poverty's "evil spell." This represents early-20th-century Progressive Era charity: well-intentioned but paternalistic, emphasizing moral salvation through nature and institutional structure.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Lire's Camps for Needy Children Broadcasting ‘SOur Buddies" - - - Everybody Tune In, Please YOOD MORNING, Family: gift of their environment. All right. have never heard of any code save This is Station LIFE: speak- Now, we'll go ahead. Think of — that of “he who can take, can hare.” wey and Dick—if you can bear it) [t's a primitive law. Dick picks it get that you don’t have ta know any- — —transplanted by some malevolent up easily. His food makes him sick; thing about wave lengths and you — trick of fate to those hideous dis- his sick body makes him nervous et tricts of the very poor in the great and rebellious; his rebellion makes i it. Not even a little home-made set, — teeming city of New York. ‘Think him bad. Now, where's the Dick ing, and it’s such an casy station to Na don’t even have to own a radio to or anything. All you need is an of dainty Naney left unguarded in you knew? How long do you think 4 and a human heart. And there you the slums for even a day. See her your children could stand up under ire—and there we are trying to play “pretend” with other — the evil spell of the tenements? Well, folks, I guess you know 1 urchins in some dark hall | what we're going to speak about this way. Eating anything that comes ND, folks, how lon ewe going | beautiful) mornin, Yes—our little her way. Hearing the sordid to let those other youngsters suf } Buddies of the Tenements, and those — tragedies of life discussed with gusto, — fer down there this summer without H Camps which Lire maintains for Breathing the hot, sickening air, one brief taste of the country, with i them through your generosity. and sleeping with half a dozen other — out one brief healing draught of that | Now, listen, family. Think for a children in a breathless and unsani- sweet, friendly life that we can give { moment of your own little brown tary room. And Dick! His life and — them for a little while! Perhaps a bobbed-haired Nancy playing out — his little mind in extreme danger a — holiday at one of Lire’s Camps may q there on the lawn, and of your dozen times a day. — Fire-escapes be the means of changing the whole chesty Dick doing a marathon up and roofs for playgrounds The current of a child’s existence! Who and down the “walk” on his scooter! rough shower-baths provided by — cansay? At any rate, eighteen days Get their picture straight. Remem- — kindly firemen who sometimes turn — either at Pottersville, N. J. (where ber the care and the devotion with — their hose on the wilted boyhood of — we take the boys), or at Branchville, which you surround them—the good — the slums are the kindest things that Conn. (where we take the girls), tir, the hours of quict sleep, the come his way during the scorching means untold happiness, renewed well-chosen food, and the priceless afternoons. His wild companions — health, (Please turn to page 28) A Great Moment THE BUGLE BLARES—-OLD GLORY WHIPS OUT—EVERY RIGHT HAND SNAPS TO SALUTE— AND LIFE IS ALL SET FOR ANOTHER GLORIOUS DAY AT THE Boys’ CAMP. comicbooks.com