Look before you leap
1900-1905
Charles Dana Gibson, famous for creating the 'Gibson Girl' ideal, turns a common proverb into a hilarious commentary on courtship and the Gilded Age. A tall, fashionable woman stands on a cliff edge, looking skeptically across a huge, misty gap at a tiny man on the opposite side urging her to jump. This 1890 illustration from Life magazine perfectly captures the anxiety of marriage as a literal leap of faith, suggesting the distance between a suitor's eager promises and a woman's cautious reality can be pretty wide!
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