Flora Walsh, from the Actresses series (N245) issued by Kinney Brothers to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes 1890

This is Flora Walsh, an actress, in a photograph made to promote Sweet Caporal Cigarettes by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company. It's a tiny thing, just a couple of inches, printed on thin card stock, but it speaks volumes about mass culture at the turn of the century. The photomechanical reproduction allowed images to be made in unprecedented numbers, and attached to every kind of product imaginable. This was also the great age of celebrity, and the tobacco companies knew that aligning their brands with stars was good for business. Note that the image of Flora Walsh is less about artistry, and more about utility: it had to be crisp, clear, and recognizable when printed at a very small scale. So in the end, this is less about photography and more about commerce. These cards were meant to be collected, traded, and above all, consumed along with the cigarettes that they were packaged with. The image may be small, but the industrial processes behind it are enormous, part of a huge global engine of advertising and desire.