Four in Hand, from the Sports and Art Subjects series (N197) issued by Wm. S. Kimball & Co. 1886 - 1893

This small card was one of a series called 'Sports and Arts Subjects' printed in the United States by the Wm. S. Kimball & Co cigarette firm. The firm was founded in 1871 and by the 1880s had become one of the biggest tobacco firms in the world. The image shows a driver handling four horses in a so-called 'four-in-hand'. Horse-driving was a leisure activity popular with the wealthy, and these cards, collected by smokers, were a form of advertising to associate cigarettes with the wealthy elite. What we see here is the intersection of leisure, trade and advertising in the late nineteenth century. These small cards are therefore valuable documents of the time. Institutional archives and trade publications can tell us much more about the image and its original social context.