The Rain-A-Way windscreen pad.
In the late-teens and early 1920s, windscreen wipers weren't always that efficient at keeping the screen clear of water. Nowadays motorists can choose from a number of products to keep the rain from their car's windscreen, in addition to the efficient wiper systems that are fitted as standard, but 90-100 years ago this wasn't the case. Modern-day windscreen treatments can trace their origins back to items such as the Rain-A-Way featured here, as advertised in 1918 to the growing number of motorists who were taking to the roads in large numbers in the US of A.
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The chap in the advert doesn't appear to have any form of wiper arrangement clearing his windshield, so the Rain-A-Way would - assuming it worked - be a real boon, just as Rain-X is to many drivers today.
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"Don't drive blindly" the reader is urged, the pad is both a "real convenience and worry saver"....
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"Just rub the windshield with this pad - takes only a few seconds - and the rain drops can't cling or mist gather to dim your view of the road. The pad is impregnated with a secret chemical solution. Not greasy. Non-evaporating. Lasts for months."
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"No craning your neck outside the car to keep your eye on the road. No wipe, wipe, wipe with windshield wiper or cloth. Send for a Rain-A-Way pad today."
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For this miracle product The Badger Manufacturing Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, required a payment of 25 cents. Just the job for anyone with, say, a vintage Oakland, or perhaps a dashing Stutz for instance. If 25 cents sounded like too big an investment to make, there was always the option of rubbing a cut potato across the inside of the screen, to help with misting up if not the rain on the outside surface.
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Garages could order in bulk and re-sell them on from display units that held a dozen pads, after all, they "sell like hot cakes" we're told.
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Read about other long-forgotten goodies such as this in the gadgets and accessories corner of the site.
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