South Carolina, from the Industries of States series (N117) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Honest Long Cut Tobacco 1889

This chromolithograph, titled South Carolina, was made around 1900 by W. Duke, Sons & Co. as a promotional item for Honest Long Cut Tobacco. Chromolithography is a color printing technique where an image is created using multiple lithographic stones, each applying a different color. Here, the process allowed Duke & Sons to produce eye-catching cards on a mass scale, inserting them into tobacco packages. It was a clever marketing strategy during a time of booming industrial production and consumer culture. The card, which features the allegorical figure of South Carolina as an ancient warrior alongside images of cotton and rice production, reveals the complex relationship between commercial interests, labor, and regional identity. The idealized imagery and the industrial means of production used to disseminate it reflect the tensions between progress and tradition. The tobacco cards such as this example offered consumers a window into a rapidly changing world, even as they served the purposes of capital accumulation.