Life, 1911-05-04 · page 55 of 56
Life — May 4, 1911 — page 55: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **product advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. The B.F. Goodrich Company uses this full-page ad to promote their "Tough White Tread" automobile tires. The ad emphasizes supply-chain sophistication: Para rubber from the Amazon jungle in Brazil travels to Goodrich's factory in Akron, Ohio, where proprietary manufacturing processes add durability that "nature never intended." The accompanying images show rubber tapping in the Amazon and indigenous workers' housing. The advertisement references the Glidden Tour (a real automotive endurance test) as proof of tire durability. The phrase about rubber costing "a human life" acknowledges—while dismissing as exaggeration—dangerous working conditions in Amazon rubber extraction, but this serves only to highlight how Goodrich sources "the best grade" despite regional hazards. This represents early 20th-century corporate marketing emphasizing global sourcing and technological superiority, with minimal concern for labor conditions in source countries.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
is found ina homes. ever sold in ne factory to A uy that way. jk" ona > you by next ckland, Obio & ugh White Tread ia and it’s Origin It's a long way from the Amazon and its winding tributaries to the state of Ohio... But every ounce of the Para rabber in a Goodrich Tire must travel all the way from the dense jangles of the world's greatest forest, in Brazil, to the world's greatest rubber factory at Akron,— before it starts on a still Zonger journey as an automobile tire. While the saying —“ ‘each ton of Para rubber cost a human life” is an exaggeration, the regions which supply the best grade are so remote and unhealthy that few white men can live in them. It is characteristic of the quality of that nothing but the best rubber procurable anywhere is ever used. Yet nature never intended even Para rubber to possess the weaving quality which is added by our processes —and which Is the peculiar attribute of the Goodrich Tread. It is so durable that the last Glidden Tour of nearly 3,000 miles hard going failed to materially wear down a single one of the 64 Goodrich treads on tour...Not one showed any tendency to separate from the body of the tire. There’s only one “Tough White Tread” and it's on Goodrich Tires only— The Standard Tires of America. The B. F. GOODRICH CO., Akron, O. Branches in Largest in the World Wholesale tire the principal cities. depots everywhere. comicbooks.com