Life, 1914-12-03 · page 71 of 92
Life — December 3, 1914 — page 71: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **Delco automotive advertisement** disguised as social commentary. It satirizes changing gender roles by contrasting a literary reference to traditional women ("village maiden") with the "modern woman" who drives cars and controls technology. The advertisement argues that automotive technology—specifically Delco's electrical systems—represents female emancipation. Where women once labored at spinning wheels, they now command automobiles with a "touch of her finger," wielding "the power of a score of horses." The inset illustration shows a woman at an automobile's steering wheel, while the main image depicts a Delco-equipped car in a pastoral landscape. The text claims 185,000 Delco-equipped vehicles are "driven easily and safely by women," positioning cars as symbols of progress and female liberation. The satire is gentle: it celebrates women's newfound mobility and power while promoting Delco technology as the enabler of modern womanhood.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
“All at her'eoheel the village maiden sits— “Nor, while she turns the giddy wheel around Revoloes the sad vicissitudes of things.’ » =Gillora Times have changed— Modern woman, too, sits at the wheel—but she is emancipated woman. It is no longer the, wheel of labor— but the wheel of progress and luxury. With the touch of her finger upon this new magic wheel she com- mands the speed of the wind, the power of a score. of horses, the white ‘radiance that lights her ~ way, ahead. And, the: taming of these forces,‘their application modern ‘wheel, their perf sponse to the will and hand *‘modern woman— sage TS 4 comicbooks.com