Street Racers

Frederick William Read was an illustrator who studied at the Academie Julian in Paris. He lived in America and was associated with “Munsey’s Magazine”, a weekly humour magazine founded by Frank Munsey in 1889. The magazine included both fiction and non-fiction articles on art, music, the theatre and celebrities. Here Read vividly satirizes what occasionally happened when people with automobiles met in crowded, congested cosmopolitan environments. Street races were obviously already a thing in ca 1902, and the well to do in automobiles are oblivious to their surroundings and the hazards of racing in congested areas. The horses, carriage drivers and passengers who we see losing their hats, and the policeman, however, all seem well aware of the risks and try to cope with the oblivious racers. Street life was rapidly changing with the automobile’s coming of age.