Life, 1916-04-27 · page 42 of 44
Life — April 27, 1916 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **United States Tire Company advertisement**, not political satire. It promotes their "balanced" tire technology to automobile owners, emphasizing three engineering advantages: balanced rubber tread, balanced fabric carcass, and overall tire balance for even wear. The page showcases the "Usco" brand alongside four other product lines ("Nobby," "Chain," "Royal Cord," "Plein"). The advertisement claims remarkable commercial success—a 354 percent sales increase since fall launch—positioning balanced tires as a revolutionary consumer innovation. The large tire photograph serves as product display. The repeated emphasis on "balance" (appearing in quotation marks) suggests this was a novel marketing concept for early automotive consumers, likely dating to the 1920s based on typography and design conventions. This is straightforward commercial advertising, not editorial cartooning.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
The Long-Sought-For ‘Balanced’ Tires We have actually produced the long-sought-for ‘balanced’ tires. The instant success of our popular priced ‘Usco’ Tread is a striking example of the automobile owners’ immediate recognition of our ‘balanced’ tires. There are three big, exclusive reasons why the ‘balanced’ tire is the 100 per cent. efficient tire. Because the rubber tread is ‘balanced ’—that is, the tread has just the exact ‘balance’ between resiliency and toughness, which produces the greatest pos- sible efficiency in the whole tread. Because the fabric carcass is ‘balanced '—that is, the carcass has complete ‘balance’ between flexibility which gives easy riding, and strength which gives endurance. Because the whole tire is ‘balanced’—that is, the rubber tread and fabric carcass are in such complete ‘balance’ as to give equal wear—both tread and carcass are equally strong. It is this three-fold ‘balance’ that sets the five United States Individualized Tires in a class apart. Since our ‘balanced’ tires began to be “felt on the market” last fall, the sales of United States Tires have increased steadily month by month up to the recent highest increase of 354 per cent. United States Tire Company ‘Usco’ ‘Nobby’ ‘Chain’ ‘Royal Cord’ ‘Plein’ “INDIVIDUALIZED TIRES” comicbooks.com