Charles Sumner, from the series Great Americans (N76) for Duke brand cigarettes 1888

This is a promotional card of Charles Sumner by W. Duke, Sons & Co., dating roughly from the late nineteenth century. These cards were included in cigarette packs as a marketing strategy. Here, Sumner’s portrait is placed in front of a scene of him delivering a speech. Sumner was a fierce anti-slavery advocate and a leading voice for radical Reconstruction. Given this stance, the irony of his image being used to market cigarettes is hard to ignore. The W. Duke & Sons company profited from tobacco, a crop cultivated by enslaved African Americans prior to the Civil War, and by exploited sharecroppers in the decades after. Although this card seeks to capitalize on Sumner’s image, it also serves as a painful reminder of the economic system that continued to oppress Black people long after emancipation. It leaves me thinking about the complexities of historical memory, and how the legacies of even the most progressive figures can be tangled in exploitation.