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

This photograph of Edwin Booth was produced by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as a promotional item for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes. This small card, made using albumen print process, served as a collectible, and speaks volumes about the intersection of celebrity, consumption, and industrial production in the late 19th century. The albumen process, which involves coating paper with egg white and silver nitrate, was a widely used photographic printing method at the time. Its mass production speaks to the rise of consumer culture, where images of famous figures became commodities themselves. It is interesting to consider the labor involved in the mass production of these cards, the workers who prepared the albumen paper, operated the cameras, and packaged these cards with cigarettes. So, while on the surface, this photograph may seem like a simple portrait, it reflects the complex relationships between art, industry, and popular culture during the period of rapid industrialization.