Life, 1920-11-11 · page 29 of 44
Life — November 11, 1920 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is primarily **advertising, not satire or editorial content**. The top half features a testimonial letter from Gardner Machine Company (Beloit, Wisconsin) praising the Addressograph machine for bulk-filling form letters with names, addresses, and dates. The bottom half is a full-page advertisement for the Addressograph itself, showing a woman demonstrating the machine alongside sample form letters. The ad emphasizes speed (1000-1500 addresses per hour versus 500 by typewriter) and accuracy, positioning the device as essential for any office doing mass mailings. **Context for modern readers**: This represents early-20th-century office automation—a predecessor to modern mail-merge software. The advertisement targets businesses doing direct mail campaigns, promising efficiency gains that would have been genuinely revolutionary in 1920. The woman operator was typical imagery for marketing business machines to offices of that era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Machine Go MANUFACTURERS OF MAIN OFFICE AND FACTORY Beloit, Wisconsin, USA. 7 , Ostober 1, 1920. © Addressograph Co., 201 West Van Buren st Chicago ,Ills, Gentlenenj— We get excellent results im filling in names , a sees, salutation and dates on form, letters! % yoan positi n makes better *matches*to our, fo: we can get with a typewriter-— saves an enormous amount of tine] be without it! 3 Very truly yours atches” Form Letters Better Typewriter. FREE TRIAL Proves It! OU would sell more if 1000 a DAY by typewriter. Get you circularized oftener, #¢ceptable ‘matches’? WITHOUT - ~ineularize ERRORS! You could circularize of- Right in your office your clerk can er if you had a quicker, emboss names, addre SSes, etc., in vay to “fill in’? form EXACT typewriter-face type on in- destructible card index plates. This $70.00 Addressograph prints i THRU RIBBON —“‘light,”? ‘‘me- hy not “fill in’? 1000 names, ad- -dium’? or ‘heavy’? shades of im- ses, salutations and dates on form _ pressio’ 1000 to 1500 an hour! ts AN HOUR, instead of 500 to. Addr ALL Forms! No Errors! 0 Day Free Trial without Cost or Obligation! Sales and Plate Embossing Offices in 50 Cities dressog TRADE MARK W. Van Buren St. 743 Broadway CHICAGO NEW YORK CANADIAN SALES OFFICES AND PLATE SI HEAD OFFICE: 70 Bav Street, TORONTO Cie ang fost teal Win comicbooks.com