"Why Not Go The Limit?" Illustration

Title: "Why Not Go The Limit?" Illustration
Description: Cartoon from Puck Magazine. Each issue of the humor magazine Puck had a colorful cover as well as a centerfold that tackled prominent issues. Among the most popular of these centerfolds appeared in the March 18, 1908 issue. Noted magazine illustrator, Harry Grant Dart was contracted by Puck’s editors to create a centerfold dedicated to satirizing the Women’s Suffrage Movement. Dart’s illustration took women out of the home and placed them in a bar, smoking, drinking, betting and gambling, just like their husbands, with bewildered children in tow. This must have been shocking indeed for the male readers of Puck but perhaps instead of satirizing women’s rights, to our modern-day eyes, this centerfold places women on an equal footing with men. Not only do women enjoy habits traditionally recognized as those more common to men of that era, but the bar itself crosses the gender line with a woman as owner.
Date: 1908-03-18