Life, 1912-11-28 · page 29 of 44
Life — November 28, 1912 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **commercial advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It promotes Garford trucks by emphasizing their selection for the Catskill Aqueduct project—a massive infrastructure undertaking supplying water to New York City (600 million gallons daily to 6 million people, costing over $209 million and spanning 85+ miles). The advertisement uses the aqueduct's scale and importance as credibility. It stresses that contractors chose Garford trucks after testing competitors, and highlights how time-sensitive this project was (contracts included penalty clauses for delays). The copy argues that if Garford trucks proved essential for "the world's biggest contracting job," they can help any business needing hauling services. The illustration shows Garford trucks operating at the aqueduct's construction site. This is straightforward industrial-era marketing: leverage a prestigious public project to sell commercial vehicles to other businesses.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
ahs = Showing Garford Trucks at work on the famous Catskill Aqueduct Chosen for the New York City with water. It will supply Greater New York with 600,000,000 gallons of water every twenty-four hours—which is 100 gallons a day for 6,000,000 people. It will cost over $209,000,000.00. It is over eighty-five miles long. Practically every big contractor on the equeduct is using Garford trucks exclusively. And each one of these contractors chose the Garford after testing and investigating all the beat known products. The time element has played a most impor- tant part on this big job. Infact all contracts carry ‘@ strong penalty clause covering and guaranteeing time of completion. The work must be done with the utmost rapidity and with the greatest accuracy, Time here is valued in the millions. Therefore every conceivable manner and means of quick construction became the most essential part of the chief engineer's work. Every prac- tical modern time saving device was employed. In trucks, the Garford was selected. Prominent among the innumerable modern methods of rapid twentieth century construc- tion you find scores of these big splendid time and money savers working night and day. TRUCKS nt world’s biggest contracting job HE Catskill Aqueduct is the largest undertaking of its kind in the world. In a great many respects it is larger and more important than the Panama Canal. This aqueduct is to furnish ‘The use and the important part taken by Garford trucks in the greatest municipal water supply system in the world demonstrates how it can ald and help you to economically develop, strengthen and broaden your business—no mat- ter what It might be. For if you haul’ things, you can use Garford trucks to a great advantage. A line to us will bring you complete infor- mation regarding the installation of one or more Garford trucks. We have the facts and figures that will convince you. We can advise you as to style, number, size, costs and everything else that might occur to you. All information gratis, Please address Dept. 3. The following big New York contractors are using Garford Trucks exclusively on the Catskill Aqueduct, New York State Barge Canal, the New York Connecting Railways Bridge and many other huge projects: T. A. Gillespie Company Holbrook Cabot & Rollins Smith Hauser Locker & Company Pittsburgh Contracting Company (Booth & Flynn, Prop.) Watson Contracting Company Bradley Contracting Company John J. O'Leary Contracting Co. Union Building & Construction Co. Burghart & Son, Contractors Joseph Johnson's Sons, Contractors McMullan Contracting & Trucking Co. The Garford Company, Elyria, Ohio comicbooks.com