Life, 1921-05-19 · page 4 of 36
Life — May 19, 1921 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily a **Warren Company advertisement for printing paper**, not satirical content. The page uses a marketing appeal rather than satire. The illustration shows a woman reading a catalog—likely mail-order catalogs from companies like Sears or Montgomery Ward, which were extremely popular in early-to-mid 20th century America. The advertisement's argument is that women extensively study catalogs before making purchases, making them valuable targets for quality printing. The ad claims women are "the great catalog readers" and argues that superior paper quality (Warren's product) leads to better printing, which influences purchasing decisions. The text emphasizes that printing on Warren paper produces more uniform, professional results—a practical sales pitch rather than humor or satire.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
106 STANDARD PRINTING PAP ERS comicbooks.com WOMEN are the great catalog readers BOUT the time a woman makes up her mind to buy new rugs or furniture, clothes, an automobile, or anything, she begins to send for and read catalogs and booklets on the subject. Right here the contest between your printing and another’s printing begins. It is going on all the time in thousands of good homes. Women are reading catalogs, looking at pictures, deciding against this one and holding that one for further reference, every step leading to an ultimate sale. Maybe you don’t issue a catalog at all. Maybe you don’t know that people, especially women, like to look at pictures of things before seeing them in the stores. Or perhaps you present your possible customers with a catalog or booklet that isn’t printed as well as your printer might have done it, if he had better paper, plenty of time, and a good working dummy carefully laid out in advance. S. D. Warren Company wants to help printers and buyers of printing to produce better print- ing, and Warren’s Standard Printing Papers are offered to that end. Better Paper means Better Printing, because Better Paper, in the Warren sense, means paper that will print just as it is expected to print, every sheet, every ream, every case, evenly, uniformly, and with variation reduced to a minimum. inate rs pers In addition, printing to be done on a Warren paper should be carefully planned. Every paper merchant who sells Warren's Standard Printing Papers has recently distrib- uted copies of a book written about Warren's Olde Style, and containing material that not only tells how to get the most out of that paper, but makes the job of preparing a dummy fora catalog, booklet, or other piece of printing easier, simpler, and so accurate as to greatly reduce the liability of error, lost time, or unexpected expense. These books are distributed by the paper merchants to printers, engravers, ad- vertising managers, artists, and designers. If you do not know the Warren Distrib- utor nearest your city, write us for his name. S. D. WARREN COMPANY, BOSTON, MASS.