The Wasp — 1894 — page 90: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This cartoon from *The Wasp* (August 4, 1894) satirizes the World's Columbian Exposition's Midway Plaisance—Chicago's 1893 fair's entertainment zone. The scene depicts a couple at the fairgrounds with a small dog. The woman holds a parasol while the man proposes marriage. Their dialogue jokes that the Fair's attractions are temporary ("a pity the Fair will be soon gone") yet omnipresent in the city ("You see them on every street"). The man's proposal is presented as having merit only if she agrees ("It's a go if you say so")—suggesting the proposal itself is as transient and conditional as the fair's pleasures. The cartoon mocks both the fair's cultural grip on San Francisco and the superficiality of romance conducted amid such commercialized spectacle.