Life, 1910-04-07 · page 49 of 76
Life — April 7, 1910 — page 49: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **straightforward advertisement**, not satire. It promotes the Warner Auto-Meter speedometer (Model M, priced at $125) for automobiles, positioning it as a luxury accessory for the wealthy and discriminating. The ad's pitch relies on **class appeal**: owning a Warner Auto-Meter supposedly marks one as part of elite circles—"the best clubs"—because it's "the aristocrat of speed indicators." The device's supposed accuracy and reliability are emphasized repeatedly. The two photographs at the bottom show early aviation (a Curtiss biplane and Bleriot monoplane), likely included because the Warner company also made precision instruments for aircraft. The note suggests these aeronautical images will appear in future Life advertisements. This reflects the early 1900s era when automobiles were luxury items and precise speedometers were novel technological innovations marketed to wealthy consumers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Look at the Cars of Quality Among your friends—outside the best clubs —everywhere—you’ll find the majority equipped with the Warner Auto-Meter. ‘That’s because the Warner Auto-Meter is the standard of accu- racy, reliability, dependability—the aristocrat of saa m_—Price, $125 speed indicators. The Warner Auto-Meter doesn’t guess—doesn’t approximate. It tells the exact speed, whether that be one mile an hour or sixty. It's the eventual speed indicator for all motorists; the only speed indicator for the discriminating. Warner Instrument Company, 830 Wheeler Avenue, Beloit, Wis. Atlanta, 116 Edgewood Ave. —_Cincinnatl, 807 Main St. Indianapolis, 330-331 N. Ilinols St. Pittsburg, $940 Kirkwood St. Branches: Boston, 925 Boylston St. Cleveland, 2062 Euctid Ave. Los Angetes, 748 S. Olive St. ‘San Francisco, 36-38 Van Ness Ave. + Buftato, 720 Main St. Denver, 1518 Broadway New York, 1902 Broadway Seattle, 611 East Pike St. Chicago, 2420 Michigan Ave. Detroit, 870 Woodward Ave. Philadelphia, 302 N. Broad St. St. Louis, 3023 Ollve Street NOTE: I have just secured a number of the best photographs ever taken of aeroplanes in flight. They will appear shortly in con nection with our advertising—A. P. Warner comicbooks.com