The Wasp — 1894 — page 86: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertisements and notices** rather than political satire. The visible cartoon titled "Fashionable Motherhood" depicts two women with a small child, illustrating contemporary parenting attitudes—likely satirizing either overindulgence or fashionable but negligent childcare practices of wealthy San Francisco society. The bulk of the page consists of classified ads and business notices for San Francisco services (dentists, dancing academies, veterinarians, champagne), mixed with brief humorous anecdotes and social commentary. One piece mocks men who smoke cigarettes ("it is not a sign if a man smokes cigarettes that he uses tobacco"). The advertisements suggest *The Wasp* targeted middle to upper-class urban readers interested in local services and society gossip rather than hard political commentary.