James Augustus "Jim" Donahue, Catcher, Kansas City Cowboys, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

This is "James Augustus 'Jim' Donahue, Catcher, Kansas City Cowboys," a baseball card produced by Goodwin & Company for Old Judge Cigarettes, likely in the late 19th century. These cards were a clever marketing strategy, inserting images of popular figures, mostly white men, into cigarette packs. Consider this image in the context of its time, a period marked by industrial growth, immigration, and also racial segregation. Donahue stands here as a representation of idealized masculinity and the burgeoning culture of professional sports, which served as a point of unity, even as deep social divisions persisted. The pose, the dirt field, and the uniform, all speak to a certain kind of grit and aspiration that baseball embodied for many. But who was excluded from this vision of American identity? What does it mean to participate in the consumption of this image through its original medium, a cigarette pack? What alternative stories are obscured by this image?