Life — March 29, 1923 — page 4: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# Analysis This page is primarily **advertising for the Mimeograph machine** by the A.B. Dick Company of Chicago, not political satire. The ad's headline makes a humorous comparison: King Tutankhamun might have built a lasting civilization if he'd possessed duplication technology. The joke is that ancient Egypt's achievements relied on manual record-keeping, while modern businesses using Mimeographs can efficiently reproduce documents at scale. The ornate oval frame containing an image of the Mimeograph device mimics Egyptian decorative style, reinforcing the Tut comparison. The ad emphasizes the machine's practical benefits: rapid copying of letters, bulletins, and forms that would otherwise require extensive manual labor. This reflects early 20th-century business culture, when mechanical duplication was revolutionary technology worth explaining to readers.