Life, 1917-11-22 · page 2 of 44
Life — November 22, 1917 — page 2: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is an **advertisement**, not satire or political commentary. It promotes Omar Turkish cigarettes, priced at 15 cents, manufactured by The American Tobacco Co. The ad emphasizes the product's blend of Turkish tobacco and accentuating leaves, claiming to deliver both "aroma" and "ripe and pure" taste. The visual shows a cigarette package and an ornate holder featuring what appears to be a **Turkish figure**—likely referencing the exotic "Omar" brand name to suggest authenticity and premium quality. The headline "Even the words blend" is a play on the product's blended tobacco composition. This represents early-20th-century marketing that used orientalist imagery and naming to position cigarettes as sophisticated and desirable to American consumers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
"THE goal of every smoker is aroma—and every Omar Scores, in fragrance, in taste. Omar’s fine, rich Turkish gives you taste and its ripe accentu- ating leaves the fragrance. Both are perfectly combined in the perfect Omar blend. That gives you aroma—rich and ripe and pure. QMAR CIGARETTES comicbooksreg