Life, 1906-12-06 · page 39 of 64
Life — December 6, 1906 — page 39: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **full-page advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It promotes the Angelus, a player piano mechanism manufactured by Wilcox & White Company (established 1876). The image shows a man operating the device while a woman stands nearby—typical early-20th-century domestic imagery positioning the player piano as aspirational home entertainment. The advertisement's pitch targets both musicians and non-musicians, claiming the Angelus eliminates skill limitations through automated features: "Phrasing Lever," "Diaphragm Pneumatics" (providing "Human Touch"), and "Melody Buttons" allow untrained hands to play complex music professionally. The marketing emphasizes exclusivity—these features were patented and unavailable elsewhere—and prestige ("Purchased by Royalty and the World's Greatest Musicians"). This reflects the early 1900s fascination with mechanical music devices before recorded audio became standard.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
—— For Those Who Love Music The ANGELUS ‘When we say that with the ANGELUS, only a love of music is necessary for your full enjoyment of all music, we mean just that—all limitations to a complete indulgence of your love for music end with possession of the Great ANGELUS. To you, musician or non-musician, we say your limitations end— because your fingers, whether trained or untrained, are supplied with every adequate means of rendering all music. The PHRASING LEVER gives you complete mastery of every delicate shading oftempo. The DIAPHRAGM PNEUMATICS endow you with the “Human Touch” of the ANGELUS. The MELODY BUTTONS, which with the Phrasing Lever are exclusive with the ANGELUS, enable you to accentuate the melody in bass or treble, the same as in hand-playing. These three features, indispens- able to a musically correct performance, originated with us and are reserved, by the patent laws, for exclusive installation in the ANGELUS. . Logically the ANGELUS is the piano-player entitled to receive first consideration by every intending purchaser. The ANGELUS is made either in cabinet form or installed within the case of a high-grade piano, making the Emerson-Angelus or the Knabe-Angelus, Purchased by Royalty and the World’s Greatest Musicians. Descriptive literature upon request. Established 1876. THE WILCOX & WHITE CO., MERIDEN, CONN. comicbooks.com