Life — January 1932 — page 1: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Reading the Will" - Life Magazine, January 1931 This cartoon satirizes the economic consequences of the 1929 stock market crash. A grotesque, skeletal figure (representing Death or financial ruin) reads a will to a distressed infant (symbolizing the upcoming generation or the nation's future). The will's text states the figure has been "of so-called sound mind" from 1931 through 1932, bequeathing "the following" — presumably debts and economic hardship. The joke targets how the crash's destruction will burden children born into this depression era. The "sound mind" phrase is darkly ironic, suggesting those responsible for the crash claimed rationality while causing catastrophic damage. The image reflects 1931's grim economic outlook during the Great Depression's early years.