Life — April 27, 1922 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily **advertising, not editorial content or satire**. It advertises the Mimeograph and Mimeoscope, duplicating machines made by A.B. Dick Company of Chicago and New York. The ad uses hyperbolic language ("downright magic," "artful skill") to promote the Mimeoscope's ability to rapidly reproduce drawings and documents. The oval illustration at top shows the device in operation. The pitch targets "industrial and educational institutions" worldwide, emphasizing speed and economy—a thousand duplicates in seconds at negligible cost. The ad promises the machine will benefit printing, charts, maps, factory diagrams, and business communications. This reflects early-twentieth-century office technology marketing, before photocopiers and computers made such machines obsolete.