Life, 1909-12-30 · page 28 of 29
Life — December 30, 1909 — page 28: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **Baker Electric automobile advertisement**, not a political cartoon. The page features an illustration of an early electric car with four elegantly dressed passengers visible through windows, set against a nighttime Washington D.C. backdrop (Capitol building visible). The ad emphasizes Baker Electrics as vehicles for the wealthy and refined—"the smartest and most serviceable motor car ever built." The passengers appear to be well-to-do socialites, suggesting the car's luxury market positioning. For modern readers: This reflects the early 1900s when **electric cars were prestigious luxury items** for affluent urban users. The advertisement's language ("dignified," "silence," "convenient") appeals to comfort-seeking elites who preferred electrics over noisy, difficult-to-operate gasoline engines. Baker was a real Cleveland manufacturer, then "the oldest and largest" electric car maker. Within a decade, gasoline cars would dominate; electrics largely disappeared until the 21st-century revival. This is period advertising, not satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
improvements, is unrivalled as the smartest and the most serviceable motor car ever built. Eve with its many Runabout, represents the highest attained degree of silence, model, from the dignitied Four Passenger Coupe to the r safety, elegance, and dependal jaker Electrics combine maximum efficiency with minimum trouble and expense faster ina day than you ordinarily want to go. They require neither an expert driver nor an expert caretaker. the most economical of all motor cars to maintain. Always ready for instant use, convenient and comfortable, they every requirement for city and suburban use. They will take you farther and They are Fs $ 5 § § § s § 5 H i s s § s § $ § § $ $ ‘vile for catalog which illustrates and describes the full line of 1 Gear Shaft Drive Baker . including Coupes, Victorias, Runabouts, Landaulets Roadsters, Br THE BAKER MOTOR VEHICLE CO. 33 West 80th St. Cleveland, Ohio, U. S. A. T MANUFACTURERS OF ELECTRIC MOTOR CARS IN THE W hams, ete, THE OLDEST AND LARG comicbooks.com