Life, 1917-04-26 · page 47 of 84
Life — April 26, 1917 — page 47: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a **Duratex Company advertisement**, not political satire. The "Progress" heading references humanity's advancement through chemistry, using fire-making as a historical analogy. The silhouette imagery depicts **Prometheus or primitive man** discovering fire—a classical reference to humanity's first chemical achievement. This visual metaphor introduces the product: **Duratex**, a synthetic leather substitute for automobile upholstery. The ad's argument is pragmatic rather than satirical: during what appears to be a **leather shortage** (likely WWI or post-war scarcity), chemical science has produced a superior alternative. The ad claims Duratex is both more beautiful and more practical than natural leather. The small car illustration at bottom reinforces the automotive application. This reflects early 20th-century advertising's practice of connecting consumer products to human progress and modernity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
[Provence [monn “Progress Making fire was man’s first adventure in chemistry. This was the beginning of human progress. Here for the first time he produced something which nature had failed to supply. The greater beauty of Duratex and its practical superiority to leather for motor car upholstery would seem to indicate that chemical” science not only has met the situation created by the shortage of leather but has provided something better in place of it THE DURATEX COMPANY Newark, N.J. comicbooks.com