Counter-pedant here :) Semi-automatic pistols were definitely popularly called "automatics" in that time period. Here's an excerpt from a kids book published in

Counter-pedant here :) Semi-automatic pistols were definitely popularly called "automatics" in that time period. Here's an excerpt from a kids book published in 1916: > With all his might and main Penrod longed for one thing beyond all others. He wanted a Real Pistol! > That was natural. Pictures of real pistols being used to magnificently romantic effect were upon almost all the billboards in town, the year round, and as for the “movie” shows, they could not have lived an hour unpistoled. In the drug store, where Penrod bought his candy and soda when he was in funds, he would linger to turn the pages of periodicals whose illustrations were fascinatingly pistolic. Some of the magazines upon the very library table at home were sprinkled with pictures of people (usually in evening clothes) pointing pistols at other people. Nay, the Library Board of the town had emitted a “Selected List of Fifteen Books for Boys,” and Penrod had read fourteen of them with pleasure, but as the fifteenth contained no weapons in the earlier chapters and held forth little prospect of any shooting at all, he abandoned it halfway, and read the most sanguinary of the other fourteen over again. So, the daily food of his imagination being gun, what wonder that he thirsted for the Real! > He passed from the sidewalk into his own yard, with a subdued “Bing!” inflicted upon the stolid person of a gatepost, and, entering the house through the kitchen, ceased to bing for a time. However, driven back from the fore part of the house by a dismal sound of callers, he returned to the kitchen and sat down. > “Della,” he said to the cook, “do you know what I'd do if you was a crook and I had my ottomatic with me?”