The Wasp — 1893 — page 381: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon satirizes the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago (the "fair" referenced in the text). The title "Around Cape Horn" is a pun on the famous geographical landmark, playing on the phrase "Cape Horn" as slang for a woman's backside. The central figure is a fashionably dressed woman whose skirt is blown upward, exposing her legs—a shocking sight for Victorian audiences. The man on the right appears embarrassed or scandalized. Two military/official figures stand in the background near the fair's distinctive dome building. The joke targets both the fair's pretensions to respectability and contemporary anxieties about women's public behavior and fashion. The accompanying text suggests this reflects broader commentary on the fair's character and contemporary society.