A complete issue · 32 pages · 1918
Judge — March 23, 1918
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page, March 23, 1918 This page contains a short story titled "Locked Out: The Way of a Woman With a Man" by A.L. Crabb, illustrated by Laurence Fellows. The narrative satirizes marital dynamics of the era. A husband pressures his wife to purchase an expensive Nile-green taffeta dress from Nord & Saylor's department store. After she buys it, he becomes unavailable, forcing her to leave it at the store for alteration. When she returns home, she discovers she's locked out—the husband has forgotten his key. The satire targets both spouses: the husband's impulsive materialism and subsequent irresponsibility, and the wife's frustration at being trapped outside. The cartoon above illustrates this domestic predicament, depicting the locked-out scenario. The humor reflects 1918 middle-class anxieties about consumerism and marital expectations.
This page contains a humorous short story titled "At This Juncture Mrs. Lane Returned with an Assortment of Keys," illustrated with three small cartoon panels showing domestic scenes. The narrative depicts a husband and wife locked out of their basement, frantically trying different keys to regain entry. The comedy derives from the wife's escalating frustration and the husband's increasingly desperate attempts, including discovering a loose iron grating and attempting to climb through it—resulting in a fall. The satire targets domestic incompetence and marital friction over household management. The wife's persistence ("I shall call them up about it"), the husband's reluctant compliance, and their encounters with neighbors form the humorous backbone. This reflects early 20th-century anxieties about middle-class home ownership and the complications of urban apartment living, common themes in Judge magazine's social commentary.
# Analysis of Judge Magazine Page This page contains two separate illustrated stories rather than political cartoons. The top illustration by R.B. Fuller depicts a domestic scene where a husband interrupts his wife's knitting to ask if she'll finish a sweater before he sails. The accompanying text humorously explores marital negotiation—the wife wants to buy an expensive gown, leveraging her willingness to complete the sweater as bargaining power. The lower illustration by Sanford Tousey shows a conductor addressing a female passenger about matching satin for her wife's dress, illustrating a comedic misunderstanding or awkward social interaction. Both are lighthearted domestic humor pieces typical of early-20th-century Judge magazine, focusing on marriage dynamics and gender relations rather than political satire. The jokes rely on everyday domestic scenarios rather than contemporary events.
