Life, 1920-12-16 · page 4 of 45
Life — December 16, 1920 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **advertising, not satire**. The page promotes the Mimeograph machine by A.B. Dick Company of Chicago and New York. The ad compares modern American productivity to the past, claiming a woman operator "does a thousand times more work than her grandmother did," producing 5,000 letters per hour. The image shows a woman at a mimeograph machine in an office setting. The ad celebrates this as evidence of American industrial progress and efficiency, arguing the mimeograph "multiplied the power of the worker" across American institutions. It emphasizes the machine requires "no special training" and produces copies "at negligible cost." The underlying message conflates technological advancement with national superiority—a common early 20th-century advertising strategy linking consumer products to American exceptionalism and modernity.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
She does athousand times more work than her grandmother did. Neatly and easily she turns out five thousand letters in an hour. No wonder America is the world’s pace- maker! Her great inventions have brought her unmatched wealth—by tremendously multiply- ing the power of her workers. The Mimeograph quickly reproduces all kinds of typewritten matter, drawings, plans, etc.—at negligible cost. First copies in a few minutes, and five thousand an hour thereafter. Private printing! No especial training necessary. As in typewrit- ing, neatness depends upon the operator. The Mimeograph is beating down expenses and increasing efficiency in unnumbered thousands of American institutions—for perhaps no other invention has so directly multiplied the power of the worker. Ask for interesting booklet ‘‘W-12’’ today. A. B. Dick Company, Chicago—and New York. NINES AP comicbooks.com