Any time I see a full page anything I stop. Today’s did not disappoint.
A cartoon asking What is the Great American Shape?
The artist, W. E. Hill, didn't just answer the question. He categorized the entire country.
And he did it with the sort of confidence only a newspaper cartoonist in the Roaring Twenties could possess. 100 years later it reads almost as a roast meets social commentary.
The Modern Woman
The top panel traces the evolution of women's shapes and fashion from 1900 to 1926.
First comes the Gibson Girl of 1900.
Then the fashionable belle of 1910.
Then a “cutie” from 1914.
And finally, the modern girl of 1926, described as:
"the boyish bob of 1926, in one of Mr. Arel's green hats, and no waistline at all."
Notably, every previous generation appears to be judged against the latest model.
The far right section contains one of my favorite pieces of social commentary I've ever encountered. Discussing young working women, the paper confidently explains:
"Statistics show that business girls who have to travel to and fro in the rush hours are growing narrower and narrower."
Why?
Because they are:
"Squeezed in an overcrowded conveyance twice each day."
The Beach Test
Then things get even better. The artist presents three men at the beach. A muscular athlete. A painfully thin sedentary fellow leaning on everything in order to stand up straight.
And a magnificently round gentleman standing proudly between them.
The caption reads:
"The many forms of humanity at the bathing beach is one reason why so many young girls leave home and momma."
I have no idea what that means. Women were leaving for all three men I guess…
The National Shape
The bottom row reveals what the artist suspects may actually be America's true form.
A prosperous husband and wife identified as:
"Stylish Stout."
The caption continues:
"Mr. and Mrs. Fred Musselbaum are of the genus known as 'Stylish Stout,' which is, we suspect, the national shape in these prosperous United States."
It's difficult to imagine a more 1920s sentence. Prosperity wasn't measured in stock portfolios. It was measured in circumference.
Nearby is a businessman whose stomach receives perhaps the greatest newspaper compliment ever printed:
"A frontal development like this invariably goes with options, binders, mergers, boosting and BIG BUSINESS."
A century later, I think we all know exactly the type of executive they had in mind.
What I love about pages like this is that they remind us newspapers weren't always grim records of world events. Sometimes they were just plain fun. Timelessly funny even.
And sometimes an editor looked at a full page of drawings categorizing Americans by body shape and thought:
"Yes. This is exactly what readers need on a Sunday morning."
Honestly, I agree.
— Chris
Source:
The Sunday Star, June 6, 1926, "The Great American Shape" by W. E. Hill.