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That particular issue included an editorial by John Mitchell on Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential candidacy the following year; a letter from actress Minnie Madden Fiske concerning proper treatment of cattle; a review of a new melodrama “The Ambitious Miss Alcott” and a review of Carl Snyder’s book “The World Machine”; there were cartoons poking fun at the ballooning, which had become the national craze, and of course drawings of lovely young women.

An endlessly evocative list of the contents of an old 1907 issue of Life. It reads like an incantation, conjuring the particular preoccupations of a pop culture utterly past. Taken from the introduction of a survey of the work of Coles Phillips, the celebrated pin-up illustrator of those early issues.

That particular issue included an editorial by John Mitchell on Theodore Roosevelt’s presidential candidacy the following year; a letter from actress Minnie Madden Fiske concerning proper treatment of cattle; a review of a new melodrama “The Ambitious Miss Alcott” and a review of Carl Snyder’s book “The World Machine”; there were cartoons poking fun at the ballooning, which had become the national craze, and of course drawings of lovely young women.

An endlessly evocative list of the contents of an old 1907 issue of Life. It reads like an incantation, conjuring the particular preoccupations of a pop culture utterly past. Taken from the introduction of a survey of the work of Coles Phillips, the celebrated pin-up illustrator of those early issues.