San Francisco, U.S.N., from the Famous Ships series (N50) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1895

Curator: Here we have "San Francisco, U.S.N.", a photomechanical print from around 1895. It’s part of the "Famous Ships" series, a collection that was distributed with Virginia Brights Cigarettes. What do you make of it? Editor: It has an almost melancholic air to it. The sepia tone, the way the ship sits so solidly on the water… it feels very stoic, like a monument to a bygone era. It evokes images of heavy industry, ocean crossings, and untold stories from faraway countries. Curator: Indeed. It’s a mass-produced image, yet it represents an object of immense labor and resource expenditure. Consider the ship itself—the iron ore mined, the workers who forged the steel, the logistical operations, everything involved in its construction and deployment. This small card is a byproduct of an immense industrial network. Editor: I was initially so lost in the image itself, I didn't realize that it came as a small promotional product from Virginia Brights Cigarettes! That makes me think about how fleeting it really is to give something so grand a humble beginning. Maybe there are undertones to how things never are what they seem, if you just look at them once. Curator: Precisely! These cards were a means of advertising, normalizing both smoking and an idealized image of national power through these imposing naval vessels. It makes you wonder what the buyers thought, juxtaposing ideas of grandeur next to addiction and everyday rituals. Editor: And think of the people who collected these! Were they aware of the immense social and ecological costs behind that smoke, and the ship they used it to peddle? Were they romanticising travel, masculinity, progress or colonialism? Probably some confusing cocktail of all! Curator: Exactly! So, we begin with a ship and we arrive at this dense layering of manufacture, consumerism, and ideology all wrapped in one sepia-toned photograph, peddling Virginia Brights cigarettes. The vessel seems far away in time, like a toy from a former life. Editor: It does indeed feel heavier now. I initially saw this somber elegance but now I’m finding a far less easy-going undercurrent with a dash of commercial ambition on the side!