Card Number 45, Myra Goodwin, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-2) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

Editor: So, here we have Card Number 45, featuring Myra Goodwin. It’s part of the Actors and Actresses series from the 1880s, produced by Duke Sons & Co. as an advertisement for Cross Cut Cigarettes. I find the image itself quite striking. What strikes you about it? Curator: It's less about the "art" and more about the industrial processes here. Let's consider the means of production: Duke Sons & Co. mass-produced these cards to move a product – cigarettes. Goodwin’s image becomes a commodity, a marketing tool inseparable from the act of selling tobacco. We must see it as intrinsically linked to this system. Editor: So, you see it as less about Myra Goodwin and more about the advertisement and means of production? Curator: Precisely. It’s fascinating how these images, seemingly innocent portraits, participated in a broader economic and social system. What kind of labor went into making these cards? Who designed them, printed them, distributed them? How was Myra Goodwin compensated? These are material questions. The portrait itself becomes secondary. The focus shifts to the structures of labor, trade, and consumption. It highlights a blurred distinction between fine art, mass production and commercial ephemera. Editor: I never thought about it that way, that the picture is almost insignificant compared to the whole. The card exists to fulfill the purpose of marketing and consumerism more than aesthetic appreciation. Curator: Absolutely! These cards reflect a shift from handmade craftsmanship to industrial manufacturing, changing the concept of the artist’s hand and highlighting the power of distribution and sales over artistic value in its traditional sense. Editor: It is like a cultural artifact. Thank you for offering that context! I am seeing it now through an entirely different lens.