Life — November 4, 1920 — page 11: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Advertisement Disguised as Social Commentary This is primarily a **Rubberset brush advertisement** (1920) masquerading as satirical editorial content. The left column contains "The Adventures of a Philosopher," a short story about a rude man on a train—seemingly unrelated social commentary. The right side features a fake letter from "Claude N. Palmer" claiming his Rubberset brush has outlasted every other brush, even surviving since 1909. The humorous headline promises it won't become "still hairy as a Bolsheviki"—a topical 1920 joke mocking Bolshevik revolutionaries as wild and unkempt. The advertisement cleverly uses contemporary political anxiety (post-Russian Revolution fear) to sell brushes by positioning their product as superior, reliable, and civilized—implicitly opposing chaotic revolutionary imagery.