Life, 1911-04-20 · page 3 of 52
Life — April 20, 1911 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising, not satire or political commentary**. It's a Goodyear Welt shoe advertisement from *Life* magazine. The cartoon depicts a newlywed couple in a car labeled "JUST MARRIED" with tin cans trailing behind—a common wedding tradition. The bride throws a shoe from the vehicle while wedding guests wave from a building doorway. This visual is purely celebratory, not satirical. The ad copy explains the Goodyear Welt manufacturing process: a leather strip (the "welt") is sewn between the insole and upper, then the outsole is stitched on. This technique allegedly produced superior shoes at roughly one-third the cost of hand-sewn alternatives. The humor is incidental; the page's purpose is selling shoes to readers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
a the Feet that are Shod OR every purpose the shoes that are made by Fz: Goodyear Welt process are the best. They are more comfortable, more durable, and more effective in style than shoes made by less progressive methods, The 500 manufacturers using the Goodyear Welt system of shoe machinery find that they can produce and sell shoes that are all they should be, at about one-third the cost of hand-sewed shoes. The essential feature of the Gcodyear Welt Write today for the following booklets, 1. Contains an alphabetical list of over 500 shoes sold under a special name or trade-mark, made by the Goodyear Welt process, 2. Describes the Goodyear Welt process in detail, and pictures the sixty marvelous machines employed, Good Luck Follows with Goodyear Welts process — which all told consists of sixty ingenious machines—is the manner in which the uppers and the soles are fastened together. A thin and narrow strip of leather, called a welt, is first sewed to the insole and the upper. The outsole is then sewed to this welt, leaving the stitches outside, so that the insole is left entirely smooth, with no threads to tantalize the foot. When you buy shoes remember this, and ask the salesman if the shoes he offers you are Goodyear Welts. which will be sent you without cost: 3. “The Secret of the Shoe — An Industry Transformed.” The truc story of a great American achievement. 4. “An Industrial City.’’ Illustrated — descriptive of the great model factory of the United Shoe Machinery Company at Beverly, Massachusetts. UNITED SHOE MACHINERY COMPANY, Boston, Mass. GOODYEARK WELT comicbooks.com