Life — September 6, 1928 — page 9: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis of Life Magazine Page 7 **Top Cartoon:** Two tourists on a porch are exchanging postcards. One says "I've written everybody I could think of," while the other replies "Oh dear! So have I, and I've got two post cards left." This is a mild joke about the tedium of vacation postcard-writing—a social obligation of the era. **Middle Section:** Dialogue appears to be in dialect, depicting what seems to be Irish or immigrant street characters (references to "Howsen Strit," "Lem Street," "Sempt"). The humor relies on phonetic spelling of working-class speech patterns, typical of early 20th-century comedy that often mocked immigrant accents. **Bottom Cartoon:** Captioned "American Tourist (in the Alps)," showing someone about to miss a new Ford automobile—a joke about American car culture and tourist distractions.