Lottie Williams, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

This card featuring Lottie Williams was made by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as a promotional item for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. It’s a photograph, mass-produced and inserted into cigarette packs. The card itself is albumen print, a common photographic process in the late 19th century. This involved coating paper with egg white and then silver nitrate, creating a surface sensitive to light. It's a relatively simple process, yet capable of producing remarkably detailed images. The sepia tone we see here is characteristic of albumen prints, a result of the silver particles in the emulsion. Consider the social context: mass production, advertising, and celebrity culture intertwined. These cards were designed to be collected, traded, and consumed, just like the cigarettes they promoted. While it is not a unique work of art, its production and distribution reflect the rise of consumer culture and the increasing importance of visual media in everyday life.