Life, 1925-10-22 · page 29 of 74
Life — October 22, 1925 — page 29: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is **not a cartoon or satire**—it's a full-page advertisement for Weyerhaeuser Forest Products, a lumber company. The illustration shows a carpenter or factory worker examining lumber, used to establish credibility. The ad's premise is straightforward business messaging: American factories waste money using lumber inefficiently because they lack scientific knowledge about wood grades and properties. Weyerhaeuser offers a "Specialist Service"—experts who will analyze a factory's lumber needs and recommend the right wood types from their 13 softwood species, cut across 17 mills. The pitch emphasizes efficiency, rapid delivery (next-day shipping), and honest service (they'll admit when Weyerhaeuser products aren't suitable). This reflects early 20th-century industrial marketing: positioning a commodity supplier as a scientific expert solving wasteful "old rule-of-thumb methods." There's no satire here—just persuasive advertising targeting factory managers.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Why not add a Lumber Expert to Your Factory Staff ? | aes producing to- day has been put on the solid basis of a science. But lumber using has not yet quite caught up. There is still a good deal of unnec- essary waste and cost. This is nobody’s fault— particularly. Simply lack of information. Persistence of old rule-of-thumb methods. Confusion as to kinds of lumber—and the grades and properties of the various kinds. A costly thing! But it is being corrected — even though slowly, through such agencies as the Weyer- haeuser Specialist Service. Already several hundred industrial men are benefit- ing by the Weyerhaeuser Specialist Service. And out of this service to American industry have grown hundreds of perma- nent, regular customers for Weyerhaeuser Lumber. Men who order their full requirements on the scien- tific specifications agreed upon between themselves and the producers. HE Weyerhaeuser Spe- cialists will come into your factory on request—analyze your whole lumber require- ments—and recommend eco- nomical specifications for your various uses. You may have some uses for which they cannot recommend Weyerhaeuser Lumbers. If so, they'll tell you—there is noth- ing for either you or Weyer- haeuser in putting the wrong lumber to use. But out of the 23 species of softwood lumber on this con- tinent, Weyerhaeuser cuts 13 specics—including Douglas Fir, genuine White Pine, Pondosa Pine, Cedar and Larch. These 13 species are cut in i7 modern mills, each carrying large and complete stocks. For 24-hour service to cus- tomers, Weyerhacuser also maintains two distributing plants at Baltimore and Minne- sota Transfer, St. Paul. An order placed today is shipped tomorrow and deliv- ered to almost any industrial center in a few days. V ITH such facilities, and with the Weyerhaeuser Specialist Service, here is a lumber program beyénd any- thing ever before conceived and carried through. It is at your service—on request. WEYERHAEUSER FOREST PRODUCTS SAINT PAUL’ MINNESOTA Producers for industry of pattern and flask lumber, factory grades for remanufacturing, lumber for boxing and crating, structural timbers for industrial building. And each of these items in the species and type of wood best suited for the purpose. Also producers of Idaho Red Cedar poles for telephone and electric transmission lines. Weyerhaeuser Forest Products are distributed through the established trade channels by the Weyerhaeuser Sales Company, Spokane, Washington, with branch offices at 208 So. La Salle St., Chicago; 220 Broadway, New York; Lexingtoa Bld¢., Baltimore; and 806 Plymouth Bidg., Minneapolis; and with representatives throughout the couatry. comicbooks.com