Life, 1919-05-22 · page 40 of 42
Life — May 22, 1919 — page 40: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **not a cartoon or satire**—it's a straightforward **advertisement for advertising itself**, placed by *Life* magazine's advertising department. The piece argues that reading advertisements provides genuine educational value beyond mere product promotion. It claims ads teach readers about quality goods, culture (music, books), nutrition, fashion, health, and domestic management. For a modern reader, this reads as almost comically earnest self-promotion. Today we understand advertising as persuasion designed to drive consumption, often through manipulation. This early 20th-century text presents ads as a **public service**—a neutral information source. The irony is unintentional: the ad itself demonstrates advertising's actual purpose—to convince you that advertisements deserve your attention and trust. The claim that ads are "valuable" to readers is precisely the kind of pitch modern readers would recognize as self-interested marketing rather than genuine educational benefit.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
You can learn a lot from ADVERTISING The main thing an advertiser wants to do is to tell you plainly just how and why his goods are worthy of your consideration. You can learn a great deal from that alone, because many things you see adver- tised are the things you buy and use in your regular daily life. By reading the advertisements, you can learn the names and read descriptions of the things that are best and most satisfactory. But advertising teaches even more than that. All advertisers try to make their advertise- ments themselves valuable to you. A good many people have learnec a wnole lot about good music, good books, good food, good clothes, ways to keep healthy, ways to live comfort- ably, ways to keep the house and grounds looking well— they’ve learned all these things and many other things yust dy reading advertisements. Read the advertisements right along, and you will learn a great deal that will be helpful and valuable to you as you go through life. Gee. Bee. Are. LIFE’S Advertising Manager, 31st St., West, No. 17, New York B. F. Provandie, Western Mgr., Marquette Bldg., 1537, Chicago