Life, 1910-09-22 · page 8 of 40
Life — September 22, 1910 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Goodyear Welt advertising page**, not a political cartoon. The art shows a silhouetted mother figure dipping a child into water—a classical reference to Achilles and the River Styx from Greek mythology. The ad uses this mythological allusion to argue that Goodyear Welt shoe manufacturing has revolutionized shoe-making, making quality footwear affordable. The text explains that hand-sewn shoes once cost $12-$20, but the new Goodyear Welt System allows consumers to buy comparable quality for roughly one-third the price. The implicit message: just as Achilles' mother protected him through the river dip, Goodyear protects consumers by making durable, well-made shoes accessible to "millions" rather than just the wealthy.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
HE mother of Achilles dipped him in the River Styx to make him immune against attack. His heel remained his only vulnerable spot because she held him by it and thus kept it dry. Not only was it discovered by his enemies, but it must have subjected him to suffering through the crude adaptation cf the footwear of the day. Q It has doubtless never occurred to you that the sandal-maker who served Achilles plied his craft with tools and methods hardly more primitive than the shoemaker of your own early years; yet that is so. Until the Goodyear Welt System of shoe machinery came into use a few years ago, you could not buy a stylish and comfortable shoe which had not been sewed by hand with implements about as antiquated as those employed at the time of the Siege of Troy. The Goodyear Welt System has changed all that. Within our own time it has revolutionized the making of the shoe. | q Your parents used to pay from $12.00 to $20.00 to have their shoes hand sewed. You pay a third of the price for shoes of corresponding quality and style, made by the Goodyear method, which now brings within the reach of millions one of the comforts of yesterday’s millionaire. q The Goodyear System has been brought to its present high state of perfection within the past ten years by the United Shoe Machinery Company. It consists of a series of more than fifty machines, each as intricate as a watch, as true in beat and rhythm, delicate as eyesight, through which every shoe must pass in making. They are used by every manufacturer who makes a good welt shoe; no matter under what trade name it may be sold, it is a GOODYEAR WELT —=—; ——— ——— comicbooks.com