by zbicyclist

95 Years Ago in The New Yorker

July, 1931. The Great Depression is in full swing. Still over a year until the 1932 election. The New Yorker has always had a subscriber base with a richer demographic than average, but these cartoons from the 7/4/31 and 7/11/31 don’t show much awareness of the Great Depression.

Another ping-pong related cartoon. Was there a ping-pong boom in 1931?

What is that device?

6 Comments

  1. Unknown's avatar

    Wow. I think I understood three of those.

    The “masses are not intelligent” one is just a riff on the terrible attitude of some of the idle rich.

    “Miss Plunkett” is upset because it looks like the table tennis player is peeking up her skirt.

    “That device” is a Fisher brush, a pre-electric domestic labor-saving device, only the cartoon is mocking them by having it be over-elaborate and clearly useless.

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  3. Unknown's avatar

    The ‘We should have invited the Mullisons’ one is so dark, it’s hard to tell what the occasion is.

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  4. Unknown's avatar

    The Mullisons one seems to be an overcrowded, very shallow balcony. I suppose the joke is that there’s no room for the Mullisons (or anyone else).

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  5. Unknown's avatar

    Perhaps it’s that the woman is so unaware that, even though the balcony is completely jammed, she wishes they had invited MORE people. That’s all I got.

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  6. Unknown's avatar

    Maybe the balcony belongs to the Mullisons! And if they had been invited, they would have been more hospitable to the partiers..

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