Life, 1929-07-19 · page 22 of 36
Life — July 19, 1929 — page 22: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a charitable fundraising appeal, not a political cartoon. The page promotes Life magazine's Fresh Air Fund, which sends poor urban children to summer camps for health and nutrition. The "laboratories" metaphor compares malnourished city children to scientific experiments: when fed proper nutrition (carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins), they undergo miraculous physical transformation—gaining weight, energy, and vitality. The photograph labeled "Early American Indians" appears to show children at camp. The appeal uses scientific language to dignify the charitable work and appeal to educated donors. It solicits $20 donations (enough to send one child to camp for 16 days) from Life readers. The fund claims 42 years of operation and service to 52,000 poor children. This reflects early 20th-century Progressive Era attitudes: social reform through nutrition science, romanticization of nature/countryside as curative, and paternalistic charity toward urban poor.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
LIFES LABORATORIES AT Lire’s FRESH AIR FARMS SLICE of buttered carbohy- drate, a scrambled protein and a glass of golden, sparkling vit- amins”—just the dietitian’s formula for a breakfast of bread and butter, scram- bled eggs and orange juice. Of course, it tastes just as good, when you wake up at camp with a healthy appetite, whether you're fascinated by the chem- istry of dietetics or not. But while the abstract problem may leave you cold, and the experimental effects of Vitamin XYZ on two white mice may seem to you to be nothing to get up in the middle of the night and write home about, you can’t help but get a thrill when you observe chemical reactions at Lire’s Camps. Not the same thrill, we admit, that you might get at an experimental lab- oratory, because our dietitian does not experiment, but calculates the necessary elements in the balanced dict and serves them in the proper proportions; but if you have a taste for the scien- tific mode of life, you will beam with much the same satisfaction that you feel when hydrogen combines with oxygen to form water—you knew what the result would be, but the marvel of the reaction never fails to fill you with wonder, We feel the same way about our diet at the camps. We learned at school that carbohydrates produce en- ergy, fats are supplementary energy- producers, proteins are tissue-builders and we sicken and die without vita- mins. We knew what to expect. We knew that when tired, undernour- ished little Anne was fed plenty of bread and butter, milk, eggs, fresh Early American Indians. vegetables and fruits, she would be transformed into an energetic, strong child in glowing health. But no amount of knowledge of chemical for- mulae could make the actual transfor- mation less marvelous to behold. There was Anne, radiant, with spark- ling eyes and twenty pounds added to cover the strong, straight frame, and there were other Annes and Roses and Peters and Johnnies, all unconscious little laboratories for that marvel of transformation as they put their teeth into thickly buttered bread or look at you with laughing eyes over the rims of their brimming glasses of milk. You who provided the materials for OBEY THAT IMPULSE—CLIP IT NOW | Lire’s FRESH AIR ape 598 Madison Avenue, N. Y.C. Name. . these “laboratories,” who made it pos- sible to feed these children and send them back to the city with a reserve supply of energy and body-tissue and vitality for facing the long winter months, why don’t you visit Lire’s Camp for Girls at Branchville, Conn, or Lire’s Camp for Boys at Potters- ville, N. J., and observe this wonderful process yourselves? And you whocan not spare the time to see for your- selves, won’t you send in a check and enjoy the vicarious thrill of having a hand in this bit of “laboratory work”? Send whatever you can—each twenty dollars keeps one child at camp for sixteen days. Make your check pay- able to Lire’s Fresh Air Fund, 598 Madison Avenue, New York City —I. M. LIFE’S FRESH AIR FUND Lire’s Fresit Arm Fuxp has been in opers- tion for the past forty-two years. In that time it has expended $476,000.00 and has given 4 happy holiday in the country to 52,000 poor city children. Twenty dollars, approximately, pays for such a holiday for See pie chia toms the crowded, hot city. Won't you help? Contributions (which are acknowledged in Lire about four weeks after their receipt) should be made payable to Live's Frest Atn Funp, and sent to 598 Madison Avenue, New York. SEE comicbooks.com ZRyvyuw~rvwer=n