Life, 1914-06-04 · page 37 of 52
Life — June 4, 1914 — page 37: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **tire company advertisement**, not political satire. The page promotes Kelly-Springfield tires through a humorous demonstration concept. The cartoon shows a character (appears to be a caricatured driver or mechanic) wearing a checkered cap next to a wire basket/container and a tire. The ad's logic is comedic: floating a rubber tube in water "proves" the rubber is real; placing that same tube on a car and watching it last "proves" the rubber was hand-crafted into a quality product. The satire is gentle and self-aware—the company is essentially poking fun at advertising claims by offering absurdist "proof" of quality. This reflects early 20th-century advertising's mix of actual product demonstration and playful humor to sell tires to automobile owners. The branch office listings indicate this was a significant national tire manufacturer of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
yo oF FE bay) Gace Val Pes) Se 103: SRE EOD PESSOSVERTFeReeeegcagsLse0 0508 Put a Kelly-Springfield Gray Tube into a tub of water and see it float. That proves that the rubber in itis @ real. Put a Kelly-Springfield Gray \Ka Tube on your car and see it last. } That proves that the real rubber has been made into a tube by hand. Kelly-Springfield Tire Compan comer broadgayy & 57% Street, New Nork Y Branch offices: New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cleveland, St. Louis, Det: n, O. ‘The Hearn Tire & Rubber Co., Columbus, O. ston, Texas d., New Orleans, La, er Co, New Hav nn. L.J. Barth{Rochester, N.Y. Seifert & Baine, Newark, N.J. Barnard & Michael, Buffalo, N.Y. comicbooks.com