Yesterday when we visited Popular Science in the 1970s, we found our magazine’s audience to be handy and practical people. Today we visit the Literary Digest over a century ago and the readers of this little publication have a lot of money to spread around. So let’s see what the richest or the rich were doing with their money in 1911. Cover price for this mag: 10 cents. That’s a modest $2.30 adjusted for inflation.
The cruise industry was alive and well. You could take a 78-day cruise for $325.
 |
| From Classic Ads – Travel |
Not feeling like cruising? How about the train or perhaps a trip to Cube, “A winter paradise”
 |
| From Classic Ads – Travel |
For those days when you’re not feeling up to traveling, there are plenty of miracle medicines to save the day including Sanatogen. 15,000 physicians approve, after all.
 |
| From Classic Ads – Misc |
How did our affluent readers make all their money? Manhattan real estate and 5% Municipal bonds, of course!
 |
| From Classic Ads – Misc |
 |
| From Classic Ads – Misc |
This was a time much different than today. When’s the last time you bought a book that advertised its weight let alone one that was 13 pounds?
 |
| From Classic Ads – Books |
When they weren’t investing or reading their really heavy books there was much luxurious food! This Cream of Wheat ad today would get someone firebut I post it here as a relic of an archaic value system that made this sort of thing not only acceptable but a good advertising tool.
 |
| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
Prefer your cereal cold rather than warm? Post Toasties…
 |
| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
…go well with a bit of sugar.
 |
| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
And the immortal Chiclet has been around literally forever. For sale at the “better sort of stores” the ad croons.
 |
| From Classic Ads – Food And Drink |
Lastly, the rich wouldn’t be the rich without a car or four. The Cadillac auto is a car for “discriminating motorists, those to whom price is only a minor consideration.”
 |
| From Classic Ads – Automotive |
