Card Number 35, Kate Castleton, from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-6) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Duke Cigarettes 1880s

Curator: This is a photograph from the 1880s, a card actually, from a series produced by Duke Sons & Co. to advertise their cigarettes. This one features Kate Castleton, identified below her image. Editor: Oh, wow, the soft sepia tones give it such a dreamy, almost melancholic air. The composition feels very posed, but there's something genuinely vulnerable in her gaze. She's got a lot going on with those pearls. Curator: Absolutely, the pearls and lace seem very deliberate—symbols, perhaps, of refinement and status that speak to a burgeoning aspirational class at the time. Editor: Pearls as purity, always… but there is something decadent lurking in here. The cigarettes, after all. Tobacco represented modernity and worldly pleasure. It’s all a fascinating juxtaposition. I’d like to think the pearls refer more to status than morals. Curator: That's the brilliance, isn't it? They created an icon. Kate Castleton isn't just a woman; she's become a brand ambassador, a face associated with desire, with Duke cigarettes promising you’ll also exude confidence and be admired like Kate if you smoke Duke cigarettes. I love that advertising strategy, making people believe in some kind of aspirational dream or desired version of the self. Editor: There’s a whole world wrapped up in the layers of her costume and adornment, even down to the choice of that romantic, windswept font for “Duke Cigarettes.” The photograph is also trying to hint at this whole story of luxury that's being advertised. A glimpse of her life, and what could be yours… through cigarettes. It’s intriguing how much cultural weight an image like this could hold. Curator: It really speaks to how advertising understood desire and aspiration back then. The subtle, unspoken promise of transforming oneself. Perhaps we don’t think about it enough when considering what icons like this signify in terms of broader social narratives. Editor: A perfectly concise cultural study in the palm of your hand. This piece encapsulates an era with remarkable depth, and hints to broader, deeper themes of transformation and how it’s all, in the end, packaged to sell. It might not have the same affect without the branding but… Curator: Then you wouldn’t be interested.