The Wasp — 1896 — page 463: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

The top left cartoon depicts a well-dressed woman with a bicycle standing before an elegant townhouse, with a dog positioned as if serving as a "footman" (doorman/servant). The accompanying text presents a humorous dialogue mocking upper-class pretension: a woman boasts she saw a "New Woman" (a contemporary term for independent, modern women) riding a bicycle with a dog as footman. The response jokes that while this seems absurd, wealthy people do equally ridiculous things to appear fashionable. The satire targets Gilded Age class affectation and the emerging "New Woman" social movement, suggesting that both wealthy eccentricity and modern female independence warrant mockery. It's social commentary disguised as a joke about absurd servant substitution.