Beckley, 1st Base, St. Louis Whites, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1888

Curator: So, this is “Beckley, 1st Base, St. Louis Whites,” an 1888 Old Judge Cigarettes baseball card. Goodwin & Company made it, and it's a photo-based print. Editor: It’s so interesting seeing what was essentially an advertisement elevated to art. The player seems so serious! How should we read this piece today? Curator: Well, let's think about the context. It’s a tobacco card, right? So, immediately we need to consider how the burgeoning commercial market shaped not only what was *depicted* – here, a burgeoning sport and celebrity athlete – but *how* it was depicted. These cards weren't fine art prints; they were churned out en masse. Editor: You’re talking about production. Like the conditions for those making the photographs and prints and then selling the cigarettes? Curator: Exactly! Consider the labor involved at every step, from the factories producing the cards and cigarettes, to the very baseball Beckley used to play the sport and attract this attention in the first place! It invites questions about labor and even exploitation related to these activities and the creation of leisure and commodity culture. What do you make of this baseball "genre-painting", if we can call it so? Editor: The material conditions give it meaning. The rise of mass media intersects with early baseball...I hadn't thought about that! These were clearly produced in huge quantities to be stuck into products for advertising, reaching all sorts of people. It's art in service to commerce and the popularisation of a particular idea of the 'all-American' athlete. Curator: Yes. And in that regard it’s quite democratic, isn’t it? Perhaps more "realist" than academic painting by making representation accessible and reproducible for the masses? Editor: I suppose you're right! Thinking about how the mass production and circulation of this card made it into something completely different over time. Thank you for shifting my perspective on this photograph. Curator: My pleasure. Looking closely at the materials and the modes of production helps us unpack so much more than just the image itself.