Hoffman, St. Louis, American League, from the White Border series (T206) for the American Tobacco Company 1909 - 1911

This baseball card was mass-produced for the American Tobacco Company, as part of their T206 series. It’s made of thin paper stock, printed with colorful chromolithography, a commercial printing technique that allowed for detailed, vibrant images. These cards were inserted into cigarette packs as a marketing strategy, which encouraged consumers to buy more tobacco products in order to collect a complete set. The portrait of Hoffman is rendered in a straightforward, almost generic style. It's less about artistic expression, and more about recognizability and brand association. The production process involved a large-scale printing operation, relying on factory labor to churn out thousands of these cards daily. The success of these cards depended heavily on the labor of factory workers, and the global trade networks of tobacco, reflecting wider social issues of labor, politics, and consumption. So, the next time you come across one of these cards, remember that it represents so much more than just baseball.