Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/546



AND THE HISTOR

regard to business, social, military, and political conditions in contemporary Greece through an examination of a file of Athen ian newspapers by one not familiar with modern Greek. The

language of the illustration, unless it is that of a not self-explana tory symbolism, is a universal one.13

The most significant change in illustration has been its intro duction into advertising. An examination of the illustrated papers extending over a series of years shows the ingenuity used in combining the illustration with the advertisement and its

increasing.use in every field of business enterprise; both advertise ment and illustration take advantage of current interests and profit by them. The current interest in athletics has been con stantly utilized to illustrate and to sell innumerable articles.

Twenty-five years ago the bicycle was illustrated, but only later was the figure of a woman introduced and then shown on the

wheel; men and women were later shown riding wheels and the illustration used to advertise a brand of soap ; men starting on a race or putting shot illustrate a patent medicine; a sailor in uniform advertises a smoking tobacco ; a horse jumping a hurdle illustrates a camera advertisement and is one of the first illus

trated advertisements to use the photograph itself; the automo

bile appears, but without occupants ; later, the automobile appears with women seated in it, and still later, with a golf course in the background, with picnic parties in the foreground, with parties of elegantly dressed women appearing from palatial

residences, all, not simply to advertise automobiles and their

accessories, but to advertise quite different articles.14 But not only is the interest in athletics utilized to advertise and to push

the sale of articles that may be but remotely connected with them, but the prevailing interest in athletics and sports of every 13 The extent to which social conditions can be reconstructed through the illustration is specially evident in the works of J. Grand -Carteret, Les Moeurs et la Caricature en Allemagne en Autriche en Suisse; Les Meurs

et la Caricature en France. It must be noted, however, that illustration tends naturally to humor and caricature, and that it is often more difficult

to find material for a reconstruction of simple, normal life. - See also G.

Paston, “ The Illustrated Magazine of the Georgian Period,” Side- Lights on theGeorgian Period, pp. 57- 75.

14 A special make of shoes is advertised through an illustration of a man wearing them and sitting in an automobile.