Life, 1920-09-16 · page 42 of 44
Life — September 16, 1920 — page 42: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising**, with one significant cartoon. The main cartoon, titled "The Pensive Porter," depicts a uniformed porter deliberating over how to spend two dollars earned in tips—choosing between buying a razor or French pastry. This is **social satire** about working-class economics during the 1920s, suggesting porters earned meager wages supplemented only by tips, forcing them to make basic purchasing decisions between necessities (grooming) and small luxuries (food). The "Vacation Trunks" section is humorous inventory of items travelers inevitably bring home—damp bathing suits, dead tennis balls, magazines, shells, snapshots—mocking the detritus of middle-class vacationing. The remaining content consists of period advertisements: Forhan's toothpaste (warning of pyorrhea/gum disease), Stromberg carburetors (promising fuel economy), Cuticura soap, and Chicona Evans beverages. These ads reflect early-20th-century consumer anxieties about health and modern conveniences.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Vacation Trunks HE strike among the baggage delivery- men in New York, just as the crowd of returning vacationists was beginning to swarm up the runways, resulted in a tre- mendous congestion of trunks and suit- cases at the terminals, Travelers found themselves at home, after two weeks in the country or at the shore, with nothing but the shredded remnants of a sunburn to remind them of their vacation. It is estimated that in the piles of trunks at the station baggage-rooms there were the following articles, brought home from the holidays, which never reached their des- tination pairs of sneakers with sand in sweet-grass baskets. athing suits, still damp from the “one last swim” taken just before train- time. 4.690 dead tennis balls. 24.678 last month's magazines, bought Science proves the dange f shautleg gums EDICAL sci- ence proves that unhealthy gums cause serious ailments, People suffering fromPyor- thea (a disease of the gums) often suf- fer from other ills, suchas rheumatism, anaemia, nervous disorders, or weak- ened vital organs. ‘These ills have been traced in many cases to the Pyorrhea germs whichbreedinpockers about the teeth. Four outof five peo- le over forty have hea. It begins prihtenderandbleed: ing gums. Then gumesrecede.the teeth decay, loosen and fall out, OF must be ex- tracted to rid the sy consistently. Ord nary dentifrices cannot do this. ‘orhan’s will FORHAN CO, New York Forkan's, Lid, Montreal Gas is high; motor travel expensive. You cannot reduce the cost of fuel —but you can bring about a decided saving by increasing fuel mileage. The New Stromberg Carburetor does it. Effects a positive reduction in fuel costs by adding mileage— producing power plus and assuring additional speed wherever and when- ever desired. Write for complete facts. Be sure to state name, year and model of your motor car. Stromberg Motor Devices Company 64 E. 25th Street, Chicago, Illino's Dept. 912 for reading in the grove and never thrown away 1,256,047 shells and pretty stones picked up on the beach and saved for decoration purposes 4.047 horseshoe-crab shells, salvaged by the children, who refused to leave them behind. 1,436 lace scarfs, bought from itinerant Armenians. 1,486 remnants of tubes formerly con- taining sunburn ointment, _ half. bottles of citronella and white-shoe @ ing. 2.458 pair of white flannel tro ready for the cleaners. 25,804,387 snapshots, showing Ed Mollie or: the beach in their bay §.468,305 snapshots which 3.492, faded flowe: assorted articles calculated to tender memories of summer evening 34.647 uncompleted knit-sweaters, RG THE PENSIVE PORTER “et’s see! 1 MADE TWO DOLLARS IN TIPS TO-DAY, WHAT SHALL 1 DO? BUY A RAZOR— OR A LOT OP PRENCH PASTRY?" PETER J. CAREY, PRINTER The Drinker Wor how it can be so good, so fashioned and so true to its ty N AUTUMN'S case from your ace Estab 1786 aup Will Help You Clear Your Skia