From the Girls and Children series (N64) promoting Virginia Brights Cigarettes for Allen & Ginter brand tobacco products 1886

This small promotional card was printed by Allen & Ginter, a tobacco company, as a freebie within packs of Virginia Brights Cigarettes. The chromolithographic process used to produce this card allowed for the creation of vibrant, detailed images through a series of carefully aligned, color-separated printing stones. Look closely, and you can appreciate how this labor-intensive technique imbued the artwork with a richness that was intended to be visually appealing and memorable. Beyond its aesthetic qualities, consider the card's social context: by featuring a child, the brand associated its product with innocence, and youth, while also normalizing tobacco use. It is worth considering the amount of work that went into the production of these cards, and the labor involved in their distribution as a marketing tool. Thinking about this helps us understand how everyday objects can reflect larger issues of labor, consumption, and even the manipulation of social values.