Life, 1910-10-20 · page 34 of 44
Life — October 20, 1910 — page 34: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page announces Life magazine's advertising competition disguised as editorial content. Automobile manufacturers compete for a gold cup based on total advertising lines purchased between October 1910 and April 1911—the winner being whoever advertises most heavily in Life itself. The cherub illustration represents Life's self-promotion. The leaderboard tracks advertising volume, not actual vehicle performance, yet frames this as thrilling competition. James J. Hill's quoted endorsement (likely the railroad magnate) legitimizes the contest while sardonically defending America's resource abundance. The satire is two-fold: Life commercializes editorial space while presenting advertising as news, and the implicit message mocks both corporate excess and America's confident dismissal of resource depletion concerns. The phrase "watch these figures grow" explicitly urges readers to monitor—and presumably buy into—the competition's inflation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Intense Interest Shown Life’s Great Auto Race How They Stand to Date Locomobile..... . . 840 lines Baker Electric 420 lines Cunningham .420 lines Franklin. F .420 lines Hudson........ -420 lines The excitement still keeps up. Now Going On McFarlan. . .420 lines Oldsmobile . .420 lines Owing to the courtesy of Mayor Gaynor a special force Overland -420 lines of policemen has been detailed to keep the crowds away Packard........ -420 lines: Peerless..............420 lines Pierce-Arrow . 420 lines from LIFE office, watching the bulletins. . Automobile centres all over the country are nervous Rambler .....420 lines Stearns -420 lines Thomas Flyer 420 lines with expectation. White... .420 lines “I regard this contest of LIFE,” said James J. Hill Correja 224 lines yesterday, in an intimate interview with our special cor- Haynes 224 lines respondent, “as being highly significant of our newer and Marmon : .224 lines . . a. . . Rauch & Lang Electric.224 lines more progressive prosperity. The fact that a paper like Reo .224 lines LIFE can afford to give away solid gold cups is pretty good Stevens Duryea . 224 lines evidence that all this talk about exhausting our natural Waverley Electric .224 lines Brewster. ......210 lines Club Car . -210 lines Kelley Truck . 210 lines resources is poppycock.”” Every automobile advertiser can compete, and the one ————4 having the greatest total of advertising lines in LIFE from 8918 lines . WATCH THESE FIGURES GROW October 1, 1910, to April 1, 1911, will receive the prize cup The cup can be seen at any time. comicbooks.com