Life, 1915-06-17 · page 52 of 52
Life — June 17, 1915 — page 52: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Kodak advertisement**, not political satire. The page promotes the "Autographic Kodak" camera, a 1914 innovation allowing users to write directly on film negatives. The image shows a woman helping a young child write notes on a photographic negative. The advertisement's pitch targets parents: date and annotate your family photographs so that years later you'll remember the context of each image—your child's first party, first school day, birthday, etc. The social context: this represents an early marketing appeal to **domestic sentimentality and family memory-keeping** as consumer benefits. Photography was becoming accessible to middle-class households, and Kodak positioned their product as essential for preserving family narratives. For modern readers: the ad reflects how consumer companies have long marketed products by appealing to emotional memory and family values—a strategy still used in advertising today.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Write it on the film— at the time. Make your Kodak story of the children doubly valuable, by dating every negative, by making brief notes that will help, in after years, to recall happily to memory the incident that led to the * ‘ng of the picture. Dressed for her first party. The first school day. Bob's first sk-tes. Mary's fourth birthday. A thousand such important events should be titled on the negatives. It’s a simple process with an Autographic Kodak Autographic Kodaks from $6.00 up. Autographic ” t the same price as other Kodak films. Kodak catalogue free at you ”s or by mail. EASTMAN KODAK CO., Roch. ir, N. Y., The Kodak City. June 17, 1915