The Wasp — 1891 — page 401: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page from *The Wasp* (a San Francisco satirical magazine) contains primarily text articles rather than political cartoons. The main illustration shows a fashionably dressed woman labeled "The Idle Rounder," likely satirizing high-society social butterflies. The articles mock San Francisco society figures and institutions. One piece ridicules a Nob Hill dress reception where critics found ladies' fashions too daring. Another satirizes the "Koreshan Home" on Noe Street—apparently a religious communal living experiment the author dismisses as a "virtuous humbug" and "free-love institution" likely to become a "full-fledged founding hospital." The humor relies on readers' familiarity with local personalities, fashions, and religious movements of the era.