Life, 1917-03-22 · page 33 of 38
Life — March 22, 1917 — page 33: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page combines furniture commentary with **Colt firearms advertising**, reflecting early 20th-century American consumer culture. The left column humorously describes furniture types—particularly uncomfortable chairs and sofas—with satirical observations about domestic life and installment purchasing (buying on credit). The final paragraphs hint at courtship etiquette: using a dim-lit sofa as a romantic setting with a young woman. The dominant **Colt advertisement** ("The Colt Way") depicts a home-invasion scenario where the narrator catches a burglar red-handed, attributing his safety to owning a Colt pistol. This is classic firearms marketing: positioning the gun as essential household protection and masculine duty. The juxtaposition is notable—furniture advice adjacent to armed self-defense messaging—reflecting anxieties about urban crime and home security in the 1910s-20s. The Colt tagline "The Arm of Law and Order" conflates civilian gun ownership with legitimate authority. An Old Overholt Rye whiskey ad appears below, part of Life's typical advertiser mix.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Furniture URNITURE is used in dwellings and homes. Sometimes, after it has been in a home for a long period, it is seen on the street in front of the house which has been sheltering it. Furniture is divided info two groups —installment and paid for. All furniture—including antiques—is modern. Ancient forms, however, still persist. When a chair has a hard back, hard sides and a hard bottom, and is so uncomfortable that you can’t sit in it for an-hour without locomotor ata then that chair was the one whose shape your great-grandfather liked be: While furniture comes in the same family group, it is divided into many different species. There are, for exam- ple, many beds — mahc brass, enamel and cot—but the folding bed is the only one that rises up in. the ht just when you have dropped off, and folds you in a close embrace until your landlady rescues you with the aid of a hydraulic engin Sofas are first cousins to beds. t credit is due to the inventor of © sofa for the many ways that have been created to twist and torture the human form. To lie upon a sofa that is shorter than you are, and have your legs tied up at one end in a how knot, while your neck is being gradually twisted out of all semblance As much a fa- vorite today as in 1810, with the same panty and qual ity. iy, Aged inthe word A. Overholt & Co, Pittsburgh THE \OLT WAY “T tiptoed downstairs with my ‘Colt’ ready —switched on the lights and caught him red-handed. Then I tele- phoned for the police. If it hadn’t been for my ‘Colt’ — well! —I don’t! know what would have happened.” to its former gay self, is not all that even a vain man could wish for. The best way to use a s of this kind is for yourself and the prettiest girl in the neighborhood to sit in the centre of it, with as much space on either side as is possible. When using the sofa in this manner, the lights should be turned as low as possible, and you should talk in dulcet whispers say at the rate of a whisper an hour. THE ARM or caw ano onvER 1» COME ON, IT’ ANYTHING ONCE. comicbooks.com