Life, 1929-05-17 · page 23 of 52
Life — May 17, 1929 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two satirical cartoons by Baird Leonard reflecting early-20th-century urban annoyances. **Top cartoon**: A boss discusses hiring a "manicure man" with a barber, referencing the emerging service economy and personal grooming culture of the 1920s. **Bottom cartoon**: Shows construction workers or laborers, with the caption "Say down there, what have you in mind here?"—likely satirizing miscommunication or confusion on work sites. **The diary text** complains about unsolicited phone calls from photographers (Underwood and Underwood) and commercial solicitors interrupting daily life. The author humorously contrasts this annoyance with references to Texas Guinan (a famous speakeasy hostess of the Prohibition era) and receives pencil samples in the mail. The satire targets how aggressive commercial marketing and telemarketing were becoming intrusive nuisances in modern American life—a surprisingly contemporary complaint for 1920s readers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
by Aprit 26—Splashing hap- Baird pily in my bath and sing- Leonard ing “I Heard a Sound of Voices Around the Great White Throne,” when Katie interrupt- ed me with the news that a Miss Todd wished to speak to me on the tele- phone, and albeit I am acquainted with nobody of that name, the cu- riosity of human nature is such that I did go to some inconvenience to answer her, and when she said that she was speaking from the offices of Underwood and Underwood, who wish to take a photograph of me, I did loosen the vials of my wrath upon her poor and unsuspecting head, she being the fourth stranger this week who had established telephonic com- munication with me for false and commercial purposes. Lord! how they can attempt to put Texas Guinan away as a nuisance, when these soft-spoken women whom you are afraid to dis- regard for fear they may be old college classmates are allowed to disturb you at will, is quite beyond my _philos- ophy. The first post extremely heavy. Boss Barper: Sure, I gotta have a manicure man on the job all the time now. largely from tradespeople who have conceived the idea of making their bulletins look like wedding invitations, uv but its dullness was leavened by a sampler box of pencils from Mr. Favor of the Kohinoor Pencil Co., and I (Continued on Page 42) “Say down there, what have you in mind here?” VSS LIFES TICKET SERVICE comicbooks.com