CSotD: Happy New Year, 1921
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In selecting a year to commemorate, it occurred to me that it might be appropriate to look back at the year our president-elect was Warren G. Harding, since the poor old fellow is about to lose his place in history as the worst ever.
But the year turned out to be far more interesting than that, though I hope you'll understand if I couldn't always clean up comics that had been scanned so long after they were printed or make out the signatures on them. A lot of discoloration combined with fading, and that's just a fact of life.
So here's a cartoon that discusses the incoming president who, you will realize, was not to be inaugurated until March.
For those unfamiliar with train travel, you would often have to wait until the train hit a particular station — usually a large one or one at a particularly important junction — before they put on a dining car.
And in those days of linen table cloths and real silverware and real cooking, it was generally worth the wait.
But, probably because Inauguration Day was so far in the future, that was the only substantial mention of Harding I came across.
And I'm not historian enough to know why anyone thought things were going to suddenly get better, either in 1921 or under Harding, but, evidently, they did.
Granted, while the market crash was several years away, it was not all Scott and Zelda out there.
There was a crisis with farm prices, with farmers getting themselves into debt, but, as suggested here, there was no relief in sight.
And there was a move to provide WWI vets with a bonus, which wouldn't happen until 1924 and which was more of a pension than a payout, not maturing until 1945, though, once the Depression hit in earnest, there was memorable pressure to up that date a bit.
And there was the matter of the war debt, back before we all started living on Mastercard. In this panel, the old battle-axe of the war demands Congress come up with the alimony, while lovely young Normalcy waits somewhat hesitantly in the wings.
For those with good eyes and enough historical knowledge to recreate from a word or two, here's a look back at 1920. Clicking to embiggen will help.
I would not want you to miss the item in the bottom left corner: Women had earned the vote in time for the 1920 elections, which, first of all, means that y'all can't blame Harding just on us guys.
But women were gaining a voice in society, and, for all the jokes about spending too much — and you'll see some below — there were also women like Vivian the Vamp and Betty who played the smart half of a gag.
And there was Winnie Winkle, a great deal more of a put-upon feminist at this stage than she would be later in her career on the comics page.
Some of the advice women were starting to get was well-meaning but perhaps ill-targeted. (And why is it that both "knickers" and "bloomers" — both proposed as liberating outer garments – are remembered as funny names for underwear?)
But it wasn't all funny stuff, as this surprisingly frank feature story suggests.
Still, we're here to read the funnies, so let's look at a selection:
Oh, a couple of references in those last strips remind us that Women's Suffrage was not the only new amendment. Though Prohibition had passed in 1919, it didn't kick in until January 16, 1920, making this the first allegedly dry New Year's.
It did not go unnoticed.
Juxtaposition of the 95 years ago:
Which left this burning question:
(I'd always thought of "going on the wagon" in terms of a bandwagon, but, of course, there was an actual water wagon, used to cut down the dust on unpaved roads.)
Not everyone saw Prohibition as a bad thing: It couldn't have passed if the "nobody wanted it" myth were true.
But the humor was not in celebrating it, and certainly not at New Year's.
Even though the actual enforcement seemed a little … selective.
Which in turn made the next day a good deal more traditional than as advertised:
Another Juxtaposition of 95 years ago:
Which, in turn, triggers the only logical
Moment of Zen
Happy New Year, however you celebrate it
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
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