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

This photograph of Maud Major was produced by the Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company as a promotional item for Sweet Caporal Cigarettes, sometime in the late nineteenth century. These cards, like collectible baseball cards today, were immensely popular, revealing the deep entanglement of commerce and celebrity in American culture. The image presents us with an actress, a public figure, presented in a way that titillates, but also domesticates. The attire is suggestive of exotic dance, but the backdrop is utterly without context. The Kinney Brothers were masters of cultural appropriation for profit. How did the branding of tobacco rely on such images? To fully understand this, historians dig into archives of advertising, theater ephemera, and business records. This image is a potent reminder that artistic meaning is always made in specific social and institutional contexts.