Life, 1927-03-24 · page 4 of 38
Life — March 24, 1927 — page 4: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is primarily an **advertisement for the Mimeograph machine**, not satire or political content. The page appears in *Life* magazine (page 2) and promotes the mimeograph as a practical business tool. The ad's humor is gentle and commercial rather than satirical: the phrase "Easy Sailing" uses nautical metaphor to describe the machine's simplicity. It emphasizes the mimeograph's utility for duplicating documents quickly and inexpensively—typewritten sheets, drawings, charts, maps, and handwriting—without requiring trained operators or professional typesetting. The pitch targets business users facing urgent deadlines, promising "within just a few minutes several hundred copies" ready for mailing. The A.B. Dick Company (Chicago) offered a promotional booklet to interested readers. This represents early 20th-century office technology marketing.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
EASY SAILING : Here is why the Mimeograph is an important utility in the world today: it does easily and inexpensively ~ thousands of necessary jobs, which, without its aid, could only be done at prohibitive cost, and with much labor. Easy sailing! Quickly as a sheet can be type- written, the Mimeograph is ready to duplicate it by hundreds or thousands—and with exact fidelity. Out- — |\\\ ansv line drawings, charts, maps and handwriting, by a simple _ |\\ hind tracing process, may appear on the same sheet. Easy sail- |\\ ei ing! The last minute emergency job is the Mimeograph’s Wi specialty. Within just a few minutes several hundred copies of a letter may be ready for the mails. The work can be \\\\\ to done privately. No typesetting or distributing. No highly |\\i\ tp trained operator required. How it may be of substantial help —_|\\! to you is told in our new booklet, which the A. B. Dick Com- \ \ knov pany, Chicago, will be glad to send without obligation today. | tare MIMEOGRAPH |: comicbooks.com