The Wasp — 1888 — page 287: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This *Wasp* page satirizes cigarette smoking as an invasive social problem through multiple scenes showing smokers annoying others in various public settings: a woman bothered by a man's smoke, children exposed to secondhand smoke, couples at leisure disturbed by smokers, and what appears to be workplace or domestic situations compromised by cigarette use. The exaggerated caricatures and cloud imagery emphasize how pervasive and irritating the magazine's editors found smoking to be. This represents a late-19th or early-20th century anti-smoking campaign moment—a social critique suggesting cigarettes intrude upon everyone's peace and health. The satire targets smoking culture itself as ungentlemanly and antisocial, not smokers' individual character, positioning nonsmokers as victims of an emerging public nuisance.