Card Number 256, Alice Gordon and (?), from the Actors and Actresses series (N145-1) issued by Duke Sons & Co. to promote Cross Cut Cigarettes 1880s

This small card was made in the United States around 1900 by the tobacco firm of W. Duke Sons & Co as an advertisement for Cross Cut Cigarettes. It's part of a series depicting actors and actresses, reflecting the popularity of theatre at the time. What's striking is how Alice Gordon and her colleague are presented: dressed in military uniforms, they challenge traditional gender roles. This image, circulated widely through consumer culture, subtly questions the social norms of the time. Perhaps theatre was seen as a space in which conventional social roles could be safely overturned and still enjoyed as entertainment. To understand this image fully, we might explore theater programs, reviews, and social commentaries of the time to reveal the complex interplay between art, commerce, and society. The meaning of art is always contingent on its context.