Life, 1907-10-24 · page 24 of 24
Life — October 24, 1907 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **full-page advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It's a Schlitz brewery ad from October 24, 1903, promoting beer as a health product. The ad emphasizes "purity" as the beer's main selling point, claiming Schlitz maintains cleanliness through filtered air, sterilization after bottling, and extended aging to prevent "biliousness" (digestive upset). This reflects early 20th-century marketing that positioned beer as wholesome and medicinal. The rhetorical question "who would knowingly drink beer that was not [healthful]?" uses social pressure to encourage purchase. The decorative hop border reinforces the product's natural origins. This represents an era when beer companies marketed their product's safety and health benefits—concerns that became central after contaminated water and foodborne illnesses made "purity" a major advertising theme.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
=> Purity—there is nothing else half so impor- tant in beer. And nothing else is nearly so expensive. Purity means absolute cleanliness. It means freedom from germs. Even the air in our cooling rooms is filtered. And every bottle of Schlitz beer is sterilized after it is sealed. It means an aged beer—aged for months, until it cannot cause biliousness. Without those precautions, no beer can be healthful. And who would knowingly drink beer that was not? @ Ask for the Brewery ~ Bottling. See that the cork or Th e B e e r crown ts branded Schlitz. That Made Milwaukee Famous. comicbooks.com