Robert Emmerke, Pitcher, Des Moines Prohibitionists, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1889

Curator: Looking at this piece, I’m immediately drawn to the quiet melancholy of it. The sepia tones give it this hazy, dreamlike quality, like a faded memory. Editor: That's beautifully said. Let’s contextualize that feeling a little bit. Here we have "Robert Emmerke, Pitcher, Des Moines Prohibitionists," a card from the "Old Judge" series for Old Judge Cigarettes, dating back to 1889. The cards were produced by Goodwin & Company, of course, and you can see an example right here at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Curator: Prohibitionists and cigarettes! The irony is delicious! Editor: It speaks to the contradictions inherent in marketing, even back then. It also makes me think about the target audience. Who were they trying to reach with images like this? It clearly touches on baseball mania during the late nineteenth century. Curator: Right, the emerging culture of fandom is critical here, and we have to address race as well. Although a formal segregation prevented players of color to appear on teams, their presence haunts the image. What exclusions make this man “heroic?” Editor: Hmmm… I think also it's fascinating how photography, only relatively new, was already being used in commercial art this way. How a posed image could build a story. What stories were sold? What got cropped? It also reveals the era’s perception of athletes; the roughhewn physique. How different that feels today! Curator: Indeed. This image also opens up avenues to explore ideas about masculinity. Notice Emmerke's controlled stance—but even more so, look at that baseball about to smack his helmet! This links it to wider discourses about sporting prowess as intertwined with power, respectability, even ideas about manifest destiny… Editor: Yeah, it all leads back to constructing particular social ideals, I suppose. So what's your takeaway from "Emmerke," after giving it some thought? Curator: This unassuming little card is a microcosm of late 19th-century American anxieties and aspirations made palpable, wouldn’t you say? A neat synthesis. Editor: Perfectly so! An unexpected curveball of social history delivered through a sepia-toned photograph and tobacco advertising. Quite potent!