The Wasp — 1890 — page 198: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

**Main Cartoon: "After the First Riding Lesson"** This illustration depicts a woman in fashionable dress speaking to a male riding instructor. The caption reads: "She: Sit down! Never!!!" The joke appears to reference early 20th-century gender politics around women's athletic participation. Women riding horses in public was relatively novel and contested. The woman's indignant refusal to "sit down" likely mocks either her pretentious adherence to proper riding form or satirizes resistance to women adopting traditionally masculine activities. The page primarily contains theatrical gossip and society notes about San Francisco performers and Bay Area social events, with a second cartoon ("Amazed Husband") showing domestic humor about a wife leaving for Monterey.