Life, 1927-10-20 · page 29 of 48
Life — October 20, 1927 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Life* magazine satirizes early 20th-century American figures and social pretensions. **"Journalistic Portraits: Tex Rickard"** mocks the famous boxing promoter, comparing him to P.T. Barnum and Marshal Foch. The satire suggests Rickard's success comes from understanding mass spectacle and profit—he's brought entertainment principles to boxing while relieving President Coolidge of concerns about Treasury Secretary Mellon's potential resignation (likely a reference to contemporary political anxieties). The **cartoons below** depict workplace/domestic scenes with period humor about class and romance. **"Must Between Us Girls"** (right panel) mockingly exaggerates a woman's affected speech patterns and breathless enthusiasm about leading a church periodical club—sending books to missionaries. The humor targets upper-class female pretension, artificial excitement, and naive romantic entanglements with foreign missionaries. The exaggerated capitalization of random words emphasizes her affected, gossipy delivery. **"A Bad Lead"** (bottom right) is a brief joke about relationship troubles, playing on "lead" as a social cue versus romantic interest. The overall page satirizes American materialism, religious sentimentality, and social climbing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Journalistic Portraits Tex Rickard H E is the greatest fight manager since Marshal Foch. He agrees with P. ‘T. Barnum in a general way, but the birth rate has increased greatly since Barnum’s time. Until he reached his full development ever thought of applying the old maxim, pays,” to the boxing industry. dy had The woman He has relieved President Coolidge of worrying over what he would do if Secretary of the Treasury Mellon should resign. Like the Ringling Brothers, he has the nius for importing foreign acts and presenting them without ruining his business. He has proved that a New York manager can take an Eastern success to Chicago and have a sell-out MeC. I. All Hand Work Rk. PRESSHARD, the noted chiropractor, undoubt- edly owes his success to the fact that when called on a case he wastes no time in preliminaries but imme- diately knuckles down to work H Let's go somewhere where we can talk Sue: Fine; I haven't seen a movie in weeks! “M* dear, I'm HONestly so exCITed I could shell PEAnuts—I WHAT de AW fully mean I ACtually AM because vose? Our MINister, who is really VEET, has sort of PUT me in CHARGE of this CHURCH PeriODical Club effect which is a terribly ODD sort of organization because I mean you sort of coll ECT all these BOOKS and things and sort of SEND them to all these ind things in these outLAN Dis WORLD- of the SEC'tary of this CLUB, my culiar MISsionaries PLAces all over the But you see I am sort dear, and 1 can you BEAR it? mean it's SIMply FAScinating because I honestly look TERribly writing | OUGHT To HAVE | A NICE ACTION, | \ Ue TERTER EFFECT (S ACHIEVED FLOOR DIVIDED INTO LEVELS | | ss - —_—_ TYPE sort of imPRESsive when I start “AGUEly to all these odd souls in BORneo or somewheres, do you know what I mean? But it REALIy is AW fully good WORK we are doing, sort of, because this CHURCH PeriODical Club sort of SENT these odd soul these strange reLIG ious PAMphlets and things they would have NOTHing to READ but the BlIble, but T mean be the SEC'tary of this club is SIMply FAScinating because I got this simply SCREAMing MISsive from this MISsionary effect in TERrible del FuEGo or somewheres down there in AFrica or some- thing and, my dear, he SENT me his PIC- ture and ASKED me to send him MINE can you BEAR it, my dear? And then he WROTE me this AWfully sentiMENtal sort of LETter saying he PICtured me as a BLONDE. and he thought we would be con- GENial because of our comMUnion in the SPIRIT or something. REALly, my dear, I NEARLY had hysTERics. But IT mean that is just the sort of TYPE of experience that 1 think sort of SHOWS you how much GOOD something like this CHURCH PeriODical Club is doing among the HEAThen or some I mean I ACtually DO!” Lloyd Mayer. A Bad Lead I ORIS: I can’t stand Jack any more Jane: Why? Doris: Why, last night I had to tell him to behave yu see unless thing, my dear Oh! And he did, eh? JANE: comicbooks.com