Life, 1912-08-29 · page 29 of 42
Life — August 29, 1912 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **not satire or a cartoon**—it's a straightforward advertisement placed in *Life* magazine. The page promotes Westinghouse Motors for electric vehicles, positioning them as reliable, economical alternatives for personal and commercial transportation. The ad targets early-20th-century consumers by emphasizing the electric car's advantages: all-weather usability, dependable motors, low operating costs, and suitability for both pleasure drives and business delivery. The rhetoric ("most dependable piece of machinery ever devised") reflects period marketing conventions. The historical irony—invisible to contemporary readers—is that electric vehicles were then a viable competitor to gasoline cars. This advertisement predates the eventual dominance of internal combustion engines, making it a curious artifact of alternative automotive history that modern readers might find surprising rather than satirical.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
x ° ~ 0 ~ ° ~ ° ~ 0 ~ O ~ O ~< ° ~ 0 ~ 6 ~< ° ~ ° ~< ° ~< ° ~ ° ~< ° ~* ° ~ ° ~ : . ~ ° ~< ° ~< ° ~< ° ~ ° ~ ° ~ 0 ~ 6 ~ ° s ~ ° * ° ~ ° ~ ° ~ ° ~ ° ~ ° ~ 0 ~ ° ~ ° ~ ° * O * ° ~ ° ~~ O x ° ~ 0 ~ ° ~ ° S ey ~ ° ~ 6 ~< ° Ss ~ ° i ~ ° ~ 0 * * ~ ° i See that Your Car for Pleasure and Shopping Trips the Coming Season is Equipped with the Westinghouse Motor IHE car you can use upon every occasion and in all weathers, and that comes first to meet your requirements during eight rainy, muddy and snowy months in the year, is the electric. The motor of the electric is the most dependable piece of machinery ever devised; and built as all Westinghouse Motors are built, need never cause you a moment's thought. So long as there is an ounce of power in the batteries, you can rely upon the Westinghouse Motor to apply it to your electric with the greatest efficiency. The cost of running an electric is neg- ligible in comparison with other cars. With Westinghouse Motor equipment and reasonable care you may depend upon your electric vehicle to give you years of perfect service. When you insist upon the Westing- house Motor you assure yourself all the newest and most approved fea- tures of electric vehicle motor con- struction; a strong, powerful motor with comparatively light weight; full protection from dust and mud; no undue drain upon batteries. For business delivery and trucking, there is no more dependable trans- portation than that given by the electric equipped with Westinghouse Motors. We will be glad to give you any special information about electric vehicles for any purpose upon request. The names of all electrics equipped with West- inghouse Motors may be had for a post card. Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. East Pittsburgh, Penna. Dept. MV Sales Offices in 45 American Cities Representatives all over the World comicbooks.com