Judge, 1888 · page 68 of 69
Judge — 1888 — page 68: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Sohmer Pianos advertisement** disguised as a cartoon. Two rural characters ("Hanner" and "Silas," speaking in dialect) marvel at a modern piano at what appears to be a showroom. The satire compares Sohmer pianos to the yacht race between the American "Volunteer" and Scottish "Thistle"—a famous 1887 America's Cup competition that symbolized American technological superiority. The joke: just as the Volunteer decisively beat the Thistle, Sohmer pianos are supposedly far ahead of competitors. The ad uses vernacular humor and patriotic boasting typical of Gilded Age advertising. The rural characters serve as "everyman" witnesses to American industrial progress and superiority. The page shows Sohmer's showroom address on East 147th Street, New York.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
| 14910135 E147 ST. N.Y. SOHMER. _.qhpioratia” | “@osh, Hanner, we didn’t hev sich a splendid pianner as this, in the old times. ud “Thet’s so, Silas; and Sohmer’s is as fur ahead of modern pianners, as the Volunteer is of the Thistle!” comicbooks.com