May Hart, from the Actors and Actresses series (N45, Type 1) for Virginia Brights Cigarettes 1885 - 1891

Curator: This is May Hart, from the Actors and Actresses series for Virginia Brights Cigarettes, likely created sometime between 1885 and 1891 by Allen & Ginter. What springs to mind when you see her? Editor: Honestly, the first thing that hits me is the casual…defiance? There's a boldness in how she turns her back to the viewer, hands confidently on her hips, almost daring you to look. Curator: I love that! It's so unexpected, isn't it? Most portraits of actresses from that era aimed for demure elegance, but May's got this wonderful strength. What makes it all the more compelling is understanding it was created as a commercial trading card inserted in cigarette packs. Editor: Ah, that context is everything. So, we're not just looking at a photograph, but also a mass-produced object, a commodity inseparable from the tobacco industry. Makes you wonder about the working conditions in those cigarette factories and who was actually buying them…and collecting these cards. The paper stock doesn't seem like high-quality stuff, I wonder if these were handled much or were largely disposed of. Curator: It definitely forces us to think beyond the image itself. Think about how photographs, considered rather modern at the time, were becoming democratized, and how women actors specifically were among the first celebrities marketed this way. This is popular culture in its nascent stage! The eroticization here is interesting, too, I wonder how did that play in wider cultural conversations? Editor: Right, the whole spectacle of image making, distribution and desire is caught up in it! How these images were consumed, how they contributed to the star-making apparatus but also to the consumerist culture then on the rise. You said "erotic", I’d maybe even stretch it to the industrialisation of longing...It adds so many layers of meaning to a simple photographic image. Curator: I love the way you framed that— the industrialization of longing. This little card isn't just a picture of an actress; it's a lens through which we can view shifting attitudes towards celebrity, commodity, and desire in a rapidly changing world. Editor: Exactly. And when you examine the print itself—the production of these objects, the labour involved—you realize the "artwork" extends beyond the framed image to include the complex processes of its making and the people behind the scenes. Curator: It reminds me that beauty is often tied up with industry. Next time I light up–metaphorically, of course–I’ll think of May and the story within a small, slightly faded rectangle. Editor: I'll definitely be thinking about all the unseen hands involved in creating that moment of manufactured intimacy! It transforms something that feels almost innocuous into a real reflection on societal structures and economics.