Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from the New Years 1890 series (N227) issued by Kinney Bros. 1889 - 1890

This chromolithograph, "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year," was made around 1890 by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. It's a small card, printed with a now-obsolete technology. Chromolithography was like the Instagram of its day: a cheap, colourful medium, available for mass consumption. The process involved making a series of lithographic stones, one for each color, and printing them in sequence. It required a team of skilled artisans to execute: artists to draw on the stones, printers to run the presses, and laborers to prepare the materials and move the product. The resulting images are often charming, but the labor behind them has largely been forgotten. The card is a reminder that even the simplest image is the result of a complex social process, one that is tied to the rise of consumer culture. By focusing on the materiality and methods of production, we can understand how it reflects the world it came from, and perhaps even appreciate it all the more.