A Regular Ball, from the Talk of the Diamond set (N135) issued by Duke Sons & Co., a branch of the American Tobacco Company 1888

"A Regular Ball" was produced around 1900 by W. Duke Sons & Co. using chromolithography, a method of color printing from stone. This was no artisanal print, but rather a mass-produced card intended to promote the company's tobacco products. Looking closely, you can see the textured paper, typical of the era, which was likely fed through the printing press at high speed. The image itself is quite unsettling, featuring crying babies juxtaposed with a pristine baseball. This disjunction is central to understanding its message. The baseball, precisely stitched and labeled, represents standardization and control, typical of industrialized production. But this ideal is undermined by the backdrop, which hints at child labor and suffering. The phrase "Suffer Little Children" takes on an ironic, even sinister meaning. The image suggests the social cost of mass production and consumer culture. The card challenges traditional notions of art, making you consider the relationship between consumption, labor, and the visual culture of its time.