Life, 1908-10-01 · page 36 of 44
Life — October 1, 1908 — page 36: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising**, with brief humorous anecdotes as filler. The dominant content is a large advertisement for **The Ideal Vacuum Cleaner** (priced $25 hand-operated or $55-$60 electric), which satirizes contemporary household cleaning. The ad's humor targets gender roles: it depicts a man bewildered by housework mess and a woman performing "praiseworthy and necessary" cleaning—yet frames traditional sweeping as barbaric "drudgery." The vacuum cleaner is positioned as liberation from "choking clouds of dust," mocking both the inefficiency of old methods and contemporary anxieties about household labor. The page's small text items are period humor: one anecdote involves a tornado-surviving dog, another features a Republican campaign manager lost on a road, and domestic quips about naming meals and calling children "billy goats." The lower advertisements promote **player pianos** and **picture puzzles**—both leisure products for the affluent. **Context**: This reflects early 20th-century consumer capitalism marketing household technology as solutions to (gendered) domestic problems.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EERE AT THE CAFE Strange sauce that’s mingled with the meat, Strange meat that's mingled with the vain; 1 cat, and wond’ring what and w g for the po of my y sauce—in I eat, ath again, Argonaut. FLYING DOG ON THE JOB When the tornado which swept over Parker County, . picked up the home of Captain James T. Wil- . thirty:two miles from Weatherford, Tiger, a two-year-old bull terrier, three dropped him without i in a field with other wreckage. When found the dog was guarding a | leather wallet containing the watch and other jewelry | In escaping from the in up ina it carried miles and belonging to the brute's master house the family f room. spilled over a mile of territory.—The Dog Journal. The house was demolished and the wreckage Parker's Pastime Picture Puzzles PICTURE PUZZLES have become the latest They are beastifal pictures. (ed with special . and are cut INDIVIDUALLY with very Sne “sin oat own factory which has the | mot perfect plant for making pictete puzzies in the world. Parker Brothers (inc.), Salem. Mass., will send one of more PASTIME PUZZLES by sail upon receipt of the price. They cost one, two, three and fost dollars each acco ed at her brother's indiscriminate hospitali Do you remem- ber, my dear,” he asked he ner one day, “whether that famous scoundrel XN was hanged or acquitted? “He must have been hanged, ago,” Loxp Hoventon’s sister was often a: or you would have had him to dinner | replied the lady.— | Argonaut. Parker Brotnees’ Famous Pastime PictorE Pvzzixs by mail from Salem, Mass., UPON KECEIPT OF PRICE. Two, three and four dollars each. AN ESSENTIAL POINT Frank Hitchcock, the Republican campaign man: ager, is fond of taking long walks in the co On the occasion of a recent visit to the South he started one day for a tramp out of Nashville to a town called Parker. When he had gone some miles he encountered a man who was weeding a patch of ground near the road. “Am I on the road to Parker?" asked Hitchcock. 7 are,” answered the man, surveying Hitch: | Id. curiosity | am I half way there?" inqutred the trav: | ntry cock “Well, ler. “Wh: “it would seem as if you started from."—Harper's Week responded the man in the pate rence where as to that Asuevinte, N. Cr The four-season resort of the | South. Tue Manor, the English-like I all chunk of ice you give me for | plained the housewife. firm and excellent quality buying ice your motto h, but how good.’ "—Chicago “It’s such a si ty pounds,” should be * Not Tribune. in your board: Asuuty: Do you have much y ing house? Seymour: Well, the meals.—The Worl we have three different names for Fawovs Pastive Pictvre Mass., UPON RECEIPT each, PaRKeR BROTHERS’ Puzaixs by mail from Salem, oF Paice. Tw ree and four ¢ “ Goop xicHt, you precious lamb!" said the mother, | with the liberty one sometimes takes, even with one’s | son, at bedtime. Mother,” said the small boy, beseechingly, “if you must call me something, wouldn't you just as ‘soon call me a billy goat?"—Youth’s Companion. GREAT BEAR SPRING WATER “It's purity has made it famous" Why stir up the Dust Demon to Frenzy like this? | ‘The Man You can Escape all this | a ae f ai | The Woman always wonders why some or $25 thinks she is pe way of cleaning can't be | — |) found without tormenting || prone, andr ine him with choking clouds ||, EVERY MAN AND | =: work in an unavoid- [of dust. < | WOMAN : || able manner. should now realize that such laborious and tormenting ‘cleaning’ methods, not only are unnecessary, but are a relic of barbarism, a mockery and a farce. “ Cleaning and carpet-sweeper merely scatters more of the dirt over a wider area. Old dirt has to be rehand and again. The house is never thoroughly clean. Disease germs are left to multiply, then are to infect all those whose powers of resistance may be lowered. THE IDEAL VACUUM CLEANER (Fully Protected by Patents) “IT EATS UP THE DIRT” literally sucks out all the dust, grit, germs, moths and eggs of vermin that are on tae object as well as in it— gobbles them down into its capacious maw, never to trouble you again. ——— This machine places in your hands a method of cleaning carpets, rugs, curtains, upholstery, wall decorations, etc., that hitherto has been limited to the very rich. It does exactly the same work as the Vacaum Cleaning systems that cost from $500 up—and docs it better and with more convenience. The Ideal Vacuum Cleaner is the Perfection of the Vacuum Cleaning principle. OPERATED BY HAND Weighs only 20 pounds, Anybody can use it. Everybody can afford it. Compared with sweeping it is ease itself. It is absolutely dustless, Every machine guaranteed. Our Free Illustrated Booklet tells an interesting story of a re- markable saving in money, time, Jabor, wealth, and strength. Send for {¢ to-day, d ageis nt lying | o1 Or by Electric Motor, \ at a cost of 2 cents | per hour. | Price $55 or $60 [ operated by Operated by H Hand || puts no tax on the | strength. i | Price $25 The American Vacuum Cleaner Company 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City THE PIANO ALL CAN PLAY AND ENJOY | ‘Any one and every ope Civempedive of merical xining) can play, eter: tain and enoy any aed dita cl osc the fle exe wi th the aid | SG This maprouty feitfel searement ‘makes piven Edy composition ag eos lan "The AUTOPIANO ws cxcotally he pst forthe hase and dene whe ACTORS com layer and boa-player abe. It te wy ete caer) tana cakivaned oe nat OU can say ead cer the AUTOMANG, “The dstincdy. advantageous features (excuively, cut own 2 ad ealcee saver ann trrepective of rice, make u ant 7 s talng all ‘about the AUTOPIANO ia a readable Pea Riatehes 815000 9300 THE AUTOPIANO COMPANY 619 to 629 West 50th Street New York City What On ¢