Carry Arms, from the Parasol Drills series (N18) for Allen & Ginter Cigarettes Brands 1888

This is “Carry Arms,” a chromolithograph trading card made by Allen & Ginter, a cigarette company based in Richmond, Virginia. It's one of a series called “Parasol Drills,” depicting women in elaborate outfits, each holding a parasol in a different position, as if performing a military drill. The printing process is key to understanding this image. Chromolithography allowed for the mass production of colorful images. This vastly increased accessibility created a boom in advertising, especially for consumer products like cigarettes. Look at the detail – the texture of the woman’s velvet jacket, the frills on her hat, the way the light hits her parasol. All of this was painstakingly rendered by skilled engravers, who would have transferred the artist’s design onto multiple lithographic stones, each representing a different color. The very existence of this card speaks to the power of industrial capitalism. It was created to promote a product, using a process that itself depended on mass production and distribution. So, while the image itself might seem like a simple, charming portrait, it's actually deeply embedded in the social and economic context of its time.