Johnston, Center Field, Boston, from the Old Judge series (N172) for Old Judge Cigarettes 1887

This small card was produced in 1887 by Goodwin & Company as a promotional item for Old Judge Cigarettes. The image shows Johnston, a center fielder for Boston, and was made using photographic techniques printed on paper. What’s fascinating here is how the card operates within a burgeoning culture of mass production and consumption. The Goodwin company churned out countless numbers of these cards, inserting them into cigarette packs. Though ostensibly about baseball, the card is really about selling a product, leveraging the popularity of sports to drive commerce. The card bridges the worlds of leisure and labor, highlighting how even our pastimes become fodder for capitalist enterprise. Consider the labor involved in the production of this card: from the photographers capturing the image, to the factory workers printing and packaging the cards, to the farm laborers growing the tobacco. Understanding its context allows us to see how deeply enmeshed art and culture can be within systems of production and consumption.