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

This baseball card, featuring Robert Emmerke of the Des Moines Prohibitionists, was made by Goodwin & Company around 1889 as a promotional item for Old Judge Cigarettes. The card is a photograph, likely an albumen print given its sepia tone, a process that would have been meticulously undertaken at an industrial scale. Consider the labor involved in the production of such an item. First, the photograph itself, then the printing, and finally the insertion of these cards into cigarette packs. This reflects the increasing industrialization of leisure and consumption in the late 19th century. Sport, tobacco, and photography converged in a system dependent on mass production, to feed an emergent culture of collecting and fandom. The card is small, thin, and ephemeral, yet it encapsulates a moment in baseball history, and equally a moment in the history of capitalist production. The value resides not just in the image, but in the way it was manufactured and circulated, blurring the lines between art, commerce, and everyday life.