Life — March 2, 1922 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily **advertising, not satire or political commentary**. It features a Mimeograph machine advertisement from the A. B. Dick Company, with offices in Chicago and New York. The ad uses hyperbolic language ("Wizardry!") to market the mimeograph as a revolutionary duplicating technology. The image shows the machine's internal mechanism. The copy emphasizes speed (producing "five thousand well printed copies" hourly) and economy, claiming it can reproduce documents at "almost negligible cost." The advertisement targets businesses by highlighting practical applications: form-letters, circulars, office blanks, and factory diagrams. It appeals to efficiency-minded readers by stressing that operation requires "no special training or skill." This reflects early 20th-century enthusiasm for office mechanization and mass reproduction technology.