Card 3, from the Girl Baseball Players series (N48, Type 2) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1886 - 1888

Curator: So, here we have Card 3 from the "Girl Baseball Players" series, created by Allen & Ginter between 1886 and 1888. It was made for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, employing coloured pencil for the print. Editor: My initial impression is… faded. It’s ghostly, sepia-toned. I wonder what material makes up that almost blurred background. Is that truly just colored pencil? Curator: The material construction is as intriguing as the subject. Think of the targeted consumer. This wasn't just art; it was a collectible distributed to encourage tobacco consumption, marketed by employing images of empowered young women in what was then largely understood to be a male field. Editor: Absolutely. And those girls, young women, the labor required to cultivate tobacco leaves, printing technology, distribution networks... all these things have to come together. You're considering the cost here. Curator: Precisely. How the very notion of 'femininity' was being strategically produced, packaged, and consumed along with this cigarette product. What impact did it have, what identities did it form or reinforce, especially when considering how easily this could become lost amid rampant commercialization? Editor: It challenges the supposed separation of art from “everyday life,” and from its more banal applications. In this context, where commodification intersects with representations of emerging women athletes, it provokes considerations around labour, leisure, gender roles...and all bound to this cigarette paper! Curator: Exactly. There's this tension between progressive images of women and the health hazards promoted within it that should not be glanced over lightly. The production is tied directly to health, gender, and commercial exploitation. Editor: The social fabric woven into each step! Examining all its parts, physical and cultural, lets us grapple with the complex power structures operating still within baseball, still within how bodies are constructed in images, and what they’re being asked to consume in exchange. Curator: It’s more than just a baseball card. It's a window into a crucial historical moment that's worth opening again. Editor: Right—it has made me think a lot about the ways things are manufactured on a variety of levels; not just tangible things but more complicated concepts, too, especially ideas around work.