Life — March 22, 1929 — page 12: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Life at Home" — Prohibition-Era Satire This page collects humorous anecdotes from across America, mostly satirizing **Prohibition** (the nationwide alcohol ban). The main cartoon shows a portly man labeled "Revenue Agent: Peek-a-Boo!" — likely a federal Prohibition enforcer attempting to catch illegal alcohol producers. The joke references the cat-and-mouse game between agents and bootleggers during this period. Other items mock Prohibition's effects: a Kansas City brewery forced underground after nearly ten years, Chicago racketeers running betting schemes around cigar counters as a cover, and a couple in Iowa who saved money by starting divorce proceedings (suggesting Prohibition marriages were hasty or regrettable). The satire targets both Prohibition's ineffectiveness and the creative criminality and social disruption it spawned.