John Ames Mitchell left his mark as an artist, an author of fiction, and an architect. In 1883 he founded Life, and he devoted his last thirty-six years to editing the humor magazine which was at the forefront in assessing and molding the taste of modern America's middle class. Known as a "picture paper," Life lampooned society and social situations. Its highbrow humor of manners was spiced with reviews of cultural events and a dash of political commentary. During the 1890s, when its artwork was at a high point, Mitchell's Life helped establish the sophisticated attitudes that were America's answer to the Victorian era in England. For example, Charles Press said that Charles Dana Gibson, in developing his characteristically American Gibson girl for the magazine, "changed the way women dressed and even walked and set the uppermiddle-class mood for a generation." Life continued production until 1936, when its name was...