The Wasp — 1896 — page 603: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertisements with one small cartoon**. The main illustration shows two fashionably dressed women in conversation, titled "Back from Santa Cruz." The accompanying dialogue suggests social satire about women's leisure travel and shopping: - One woman asks about returning to the city tomorrow - The other mentions a "matinee" and "in dead broke" - They discuss shopping, with one saying "Oh, well, let's spend the day shopping there!" The humor appears to target **women's extravagant spending habits** during leisure trips—the implication being that a vacation to Santa Cruz has left them financially depleted, yet they respond by planning more shopping. This reflects late-Victorian/Edwardian anxieties about women's consumer spending and independence. The rest of the page contains commercial advertisements for local San Francisco businesses (breweries, bookbinders, tobacco, bicycles, etc.).