Life, 1929-06-21 · page 23 of 40
Life — June 21, 1929 — page 23: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a single-panel humor piece satirizing urban life and social attitudes of the early 20th century. An elevator operator delivers a stream of wisecracks to passengers, touching on contemporary concerns: changing morality (young couples now courting publicly rather than on back porches), women's behavior and reasoning, urban overcrowding, newspaper scandal-mongering, Prohibition-era reformers ("paint the town red"), and workplace frustrations. The humor relies on period stereotypes—women are illogical ("a woman's argument"), their "no means yes," and they're vain about missing their floor. The accompanying illustration shows a forest giant, captioned "The intellectual giant," likely reinforcing the operator's sardonic commentary on human nature. The satire targets both social pretension and the anxieties of rapid urbanization and changing social norms that characterized the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Going down! You can’t keep a yood man up in the air. Yes sir, I seen all about it in the Graphic. Girls used to make love on the back porch, but now they do it on the front page. Get in, please, gentlemen! I'm an | elevator operator, not a flagpole sitter. Watch your step! Kind of unsteady this morning, ch? Well, paint the town red too often, and the reformers will paint it blue. No smoking in this car, lady. Some of the men object to it. On the ground floor at the corner, And if you can’t find it at the store look for it in a salad. Can you beat it? A woman's no means yes, and when she pushes the down button she means up. Well, anyway, I can’t lie down on the job. I hear a lot about fire-proof buildings but what I need is a good fire proof boss. All full! Take the next car, please. This city is getting so crowded that pretty soon you'll have to stand in line to be run over. Did you see that guy that got off at the tenth?—Just the raw material fora good newspaper scandal. Yeah, they're all phony. And there’s a press agent for every broken heart on Broadway. My mistake, lady. Sorry. Gosh! Hell hath no fury like a woman who's passed her floor. Sure, I've seen you before. Its a small world after all, but some of the people who make that remark are pretty small themselves. No, Madame, I cannot take you to the office of Casey, Cohen, and Jones. They've moved, and this car is not a taxicab, My fault? There's a wom- an's argument for you—if that be rea- son make the most of it. Main floor! Everybody out! —W. W. Scott. comicbooks.com